


blow a kiss, fire a gun

by The General Phanchild (panicked_introvert)



Series: Blow A Kiss AU [1]
Category: Panic! at the Disco, Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Arguing, Attempted Kidnapping, Awkward Flirting, Bad Flirting, Boyfriends, Boys Kissing, Bruises, Choking, Complete, Crack Crossover, Crack Treated Seriously, Crying, Cutesy, Dan Howell Is A Little Shit, Dan Howell Is Not A Youtuber, Dreams, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fake Character Death, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Flowers, Friends to Lovers, Gardens & Gardening, Happy Ending, Hate to Love, Heartbreak, Hotels, Hugs, Hurt Dan Howell, I Love You, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Japan, Kidnapping, M/M, Making Out, Manga & Anime, Mildly Dubious Consent, Missing Persons, Missing in Action, Mission Fic, Moving On, Mutual Pining, Near Death, Near Death Experiences, Neck Kissing, On the Run, POV Phil Lester, Panic Attacks, Phil Lester Is Not A YouTuber, Pining, Possible Character Death, Protectiveness, Rescue Missions, Reunions, Sad with a Happy Ending, Secret Crush, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed, Shopping, Spies & Secret Agents, Stabbing, Sushi, Temporary Character Death, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tokyo (City), Trees, True Love's Kiss, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, Wordcount: Over 10.000, Worried Phil Lester, Yuri!!! on Ice References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2019-10-24 03:15:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 34,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17696621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panicked_introvert/pseuds/The%20General%20Phanchild
Summary: "If I don't improve... he'll absolutely obliterate me. And there's nothing I can do to stop him." Secret Agent “Gold,” or Dan Howell, is less than thrilled when he is forced to team up with new recruit “Amethyst,” Phil Lester. Phil is a former trainee; clumsy and overly apologetic, while Dan’s six years of experience have left him skilled and stealthy, yet completely emotionless. Throughout their mission to bring a mysterious super-villain to justice while travelling the city of Tokyo, Phil tries to come to terms with his illogical fear of Dan, while realising what Dan's true intentions with him are.March 30 2019 Edit: Rating changed from Teen to Mature.





	1. Chapter 1

Two men sat in the same room.

The first man sat on the edge of his mahogany desk, one palm planted firmly on top of the wooden top and the other holding a granny-smith apple, partially reflecting the tubular fluorescent bulbs above. He seemed to be made of all sharp points and pricks, from the neatly pressed folds of his black suit with gold and amber accents, to the angles formed by his bent knees as his legs hung over the edge of the desk and his jaw that was free from even the slightest trace of facial hair. Even his chocolate-coloured curls, which logically would feel like regular soft hair upon being touched, appeared to be sharp and pointy in the room’s odd lighting. He had a completely neutral expression, his crimsoned lips set in a straight line and his eyebrows remaining in a standard position. However, the chestnut orbs that were his eyes had an expression of contempt and hatred as he squinted at the other man sitting before him.

The second man in question was sitting straight up in the firm plastic chair, his thighs pressed firmly together as his toes pointed towards the first man, and his hands strategically folded in his lap to hide the slight pudge of his stomach that was distorting the fabric of his clothing. Contrary to the appearance of the first man, he seemed to be made up of soft curves and bends, from his unnaturally wide and feminine hips and thighs that strained the seams of his too-small trainee’s uniform, to the barely noticable baby fat that lingered on his face and stomach. He as well was trying his best to maintain a neutral expression, but he was not even close to successful- his teeth nervously tugging at his plump bottom lip, and his sapphire eyes wide open and darting around the room anxiously, mostly focusing on the angled man who sat before him.

After a few moments in which neither of the two men spoke, the silence only being broken by the hum of lightbulbs above and the barely audible honking of the cars on the London streets far below, the first man spoke, his voice filled with audible annoyance towards the second. “Lester.”

“Yes, sir?” The second man asked in a quiet voice as he attempted to sit up even straighter in his chair, resisting the urge to adjust the single strand of raven-black hair that had fallen out of his quiff and in front of his left eye.

“Phillip Michael Lester. Do you know why you’re sitting here in my office?” The first man asked, crossing one leg over the other as he adjusted the gold-plated name tag on his desk.  _ Daniel James Howell. Supervising Secret Agent. _

“No, sir.” Phil shook his head, speaking in a slightly louder voice in an attempt to convince himself that he was confident and unafraid. In reality, however, he was deathly afraid of the man before him. Daniel Howell was one of the highest ranked agents in the London Private Investigation Committee, only a few spots beneath the President of the Committee himself. He was best known throughout the L.P.I.C for two things- the first thing was his incredible mission skills, both his physical ability as well as his mental capacity. The second thing was his extremely limited yet utterly terrifying range of emotions. Daniel seemed to constantly have a deadpan expression; however, whenever he spoke, his voice was unmistakably laced with annoyance, scorn, or outrage, or perhaps a combination of the three. All agents who were lower ranked than him were as respectful as humanly possible in order to hide their fear and terror. The most notable feature of Daniel’s besides his mission skills and personality was the fact that he never hired any trainees to go on missions with him. Most supervising agents served as instructors for the trainees and lower agents, taking them on missions and instructing them further than basic training could. However, Dan had never supervised any trainees in his life despite what his title implied, and nobody seemed to know why, apart from the fact that most trainees were too scared to look him in the face, never mind spend an entire mission with him.

Rather than continuing to talk, Daniel got off of his desk and began walking in wide, lazy circles around Phil’s chair, tossing the apple up in the air and catching it in the process. Every so often, he would raise the apple up to his mouth as if to take a bite, opening his lips just the slightest bit as he made contact with Phil, but seemingly changing his mind last second as he tossed the apple into the air once more. After five or six laps around Phil’s chair, Daniel began speaking in the same contempt-filled voice as before, crossing his arms behind his back while holding the apple tightly in his fist. “Tell me, Lester, what have you done in the establishment so far besides beginner’s training? And do not say eating and sleeping,” he added just as Phil opened his mouth.

_ How did he know I would say that? _ Phil wondered, his mouth closing then opening again as he attempted to speak for a second time. However, he was unable to find any words, since 95% of his time was spent training, the other 5% devoted to basic human functions as well as resting between training periods. “I… I’m not sure how to answer that question, sir.”

“Exactly. And to be quite honest, I’m not surprised one bit.” Daniel sat down on the edge of his desk once more, crossing his legs at the ankles and finally taking a bite of his apple. He downed the bite in two seconds, not even smudging his red lipstick in the process before placing the apple down on the corner of the desk and crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t find it very stunning that no other agents have selected you for missions yet… according to your files, you are one of the worst performing trainees we’ve had in the past five years.”

Phil nodded slowly, looking down at his folded hands in his lap. This wasn’t a surprise to him either- he was quite possibly the most unathletic, clumsy, overly apologetic person he knew, and he hated it. It was well-known that he would apologize whenever he hit someone during his self-defense training, and he would curl into a ball on the floor and beg for his life whenever somebody approached him with the intent of returning the gesture. He was constantly breaking equipment by dropping it or tripping over it, often injuring himself in the process, and would get winded from running any distances over ten feet. His ridiculous six-foot-two height and the lingering baby fat on most parts of his body didn’t help anything either, and simply contributed to his unathleticism. 

“Out of shape… clumsy… overapolagetic…” Daniel murmured, seemingly reading his mind as he took another bite of his apple. “I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for you… but mostly, I’m disappointed. I’d expect more from someone who’s done nothing but training for two years.” He considered the apple in his hand for a few seconds before placing it back on his desk and picking up a pastel yellow cube of sticky notes. “It’s rather pathetic, actually.” Without warning, he threw the sticky note cube at Phil with all the strength in his arm. Instinctively, Phil let out a high-pitched squeal as he covered his face with his arms and tucked his knees up to his chest in an attempt to shield himself from the incoming projectile. Only after the note cube had harmlessly bounced off the top of his head and landed with a dull thud on the hardwood floor did he realize that Daniel had most likely wanted him to throw the cube back at him, or at least catch it, rather than react as he just had.

“Pathetic,” Daniel repeated, walking around behind Phil’s chair and picking up the note cube, throwing it up in the air as he had done just minutes earlier with the apple. Putting the cube back on his desk, he picked up the apple once more and began eating it. This time, a substantial bit of time went by without either of them speaking, Daniel’s quiet chewing noises filling the room. Phil had grown so on-edge at this point that he was worried the superior male sitting before him could see his heart throbbing in his chest. His folded hands were trembling with his built-up anxiety, his sweaty hair falling out of the regulation quiff and into the former emo fringe he had possessed until just a few months ago.  _ He’s probably brought me here to kick me out… he’s just building up to it, just teasing me beforehand… _

“Like I said, I feel sorry for you.” Daniel chucked the apple core across the room, where it landed with a clang in the trash can by the door. “However, contrary to what you’re probably thinking, you are not being dismissed from the Agency.  _ Yet. _ ” As he got up and began to walk in circles around Phil’s chair again, he occasionally intentionally kicked the metal leg of the chair, letting out a dry chuckle whenever Phil jumped from the sudden noise and movement. “I have a proposition for you, Lester. Let’s say, hypothetically, I had a mission coming up in one week in Tokyo, Japan. A rather small mission, actually- it’d only take a couple of weeks to complete on my own. If I was to bring you on this mission, with the promise of some sort of… reward… if you were able to help me complete it… would you be interested?”

“A… a mission, sir?” Phil asked quietly, finally managing to muster up enough courage to look up at Daniel’s face.

“Yes, a mission. If you were to not be a complete nuisance and failure to me during it, I would ask your trainers to permanently recruit you as my agent-in-training.” Daniel nodded, pausing and turning to face Phil, standing right in front of his chair. “However, before you tell me whether or not you’re interested, let me tell you one very important thing.” Practically slamming his hands on Phil’s shoulders, Daniel leaned close to his face, close enough that Phil could count the barely noticeable freckles scattered across his face. “Although this mission is small, it is of the utmost importance to me. And I am only taking you with me on it because I feel sorry for you. I have no desire to be around you if I don’t have to, and if you cause me to fail this mission, I can reassure you that there will be  _ severe _ consequences.” He tightened his grip on Phil’s shoulders, which was extraordinarily painful as his slender yet strong fingers dug into his flesh through his shirt. “I’m simply giving you this opportunity because I’d rather not have the Agency’s reputation ruined by one pesky trainee. I’m utterly disgraced by your lack of skill and improvement, and I’m taking it upon me to do everything in my power to change you completely. Do you understand, Lester?” 

“Y-yes, sir… I understand, sir…” Phil nodded slowly, his hands latching onto his inner thighs and squeezing them tightly to ground himself- having Daniel leaning this close to his face was sending his anxiety through the roof, his breath coming in quick little gasps and his frame trembling more than before.  _ Please get away, please get away… _

As if he was reading Phil’s thoughts, Daniel finally straightened up after a few more seconds of looking into Phil’s eyes with a deadpan expression, walking around behind his desk and sitting down in his worn office chair, his plump crimson lips curved into a frown as he held out an envelope to Phil between two fingers. “Here. This contains your mission description and what you need to pack. All of your questions will have their answers in here. Now, please report back to your dorm room.”

“...yes, sir. I will…” Nodding frantically, Phil scrambled to his feet, almost tripping over his boots in the process and provoking a barely audible snicker from Daniel. Blushing furiously and covering the lower half of his face with the collar of his shirt, he stumbled forward and took the envelope before making a hasty retreat from the office, closing the door as quietly as he could before letting out a sigh that was almost a sob, holding the envelope to his chest as he looked down at the floor. Rather than feeling an ounce of excitement about his first mission as an unofficial agent-in-training, Phil felt only dread and possibly terror at the possibility of screwing up an important mission with  _ the _ Daniel Howell. If he messed this up, he was absolutely dreading what would happen to him next. Daniel’s words rang in his head- he really was pathetic, and he was never going to be a real agent if he didn’t perform perfectly on this mission with him. Shaking his head weakly, Phil felt like screaming in frustration as he slowly straightened up as best he could and made his way down the hall towards his dorm room.  _ If I don’t improve… he’ll absolutely obliterate me. And there’ll be nothing I can do to stop him.  _


	2. Chapter 2

“Phil, you worry too much…” Tyler flopped down next to Phil on his bunk, glancing over towards his friend as he ran his fingers through his fluffy blonde hair. “It’s just Howell. Nothing to worry about…”

“Nothing to worry about? Have you seen him, Tyler? He’ll destroy me if I don’t do well on this!” Phil whined, pressing the still unopened envelope to his chest. It had been hours since he had met with Daniel, and he was still too nervous to open the envelope containing his message details. He had been venting to Tyler ever since he returned to his dorm, and it wasn’t helping that his friend seemed to be  _ entertained _ by everything that had gone on in the office.

“Okay, sorry, but the way you worded it made it seem like if you didn’t do well he would… y’know…” Tyler snickered, making an obscene gesture with his hands and cackling when Phil let out a whine of protest. “What? You can’t just say something like that and expect people not to assume he’s gonna fuck you…”

“Stop it!” Phil hissed, covering his blushing face with the envelope. “Nothing of the kind is going to happen! I don’t even know why you would think something like that!”

“I mean… he is pretty hot. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed!” Tyler smiled, propping himself up on one elbow as he looked down at Phil, still lying on the bed and covering his face. 

“Maybe I have noticed, okay?” Phil sighed. “Yes, he is attractive, but that doesn’t mean…”

“I know, right!” Tyler interrupted. “First of all, doesn’t that lipstick he wears make him look even hotter?”

“Um, I guess, but…”

“Exactly! And his  _ physique _ !” Tyler grinned, flopping onto his back and letting out a wistful sigh. “Those muscles, though… I’d let him top me any day.”

“ _ Tyler _ !” Phil screeched, only provoking another giggle from Tyler. He despised talking about anything remotely sexual, especially when it involved people he barely even knew. Tyler wasn’t even being as graphic as he usually was, but it still bothered him, especially considering the fact that they were talking about Daniel. “Stop it! How would you feel if he walked in and heard you saying that stuff?”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop now. I’d still let him top me, though,” Tyler smirked. “You gonna open that envelope or what?”

“I will, I will… calm down.” Phil let out a little chuckle, hooking his nail into the envelope and tearing it open, allowing two piece of paper to fall out onto his chest. Putting the opened envelope down, he picked up one of the pieces of paper and began to read, completely skipping over the introduction paragraph and merely skimming it- something about how Daniel was the best agent in the world, how important he was- all the stuff he expected.

_ For this mission, we will be dispatched to Tokyo, Japan in two days. Once there, our mission will be to track down an unknown person or persons who have been burglarizing local banks and stores and stealing enough money and products to equal over ten thousand dollars, and bring this person or persons to justice. You are to report to my office no later than 7:00 am sharp with your bags packed (the supplies you need will be listed on the second document in this envelope). We will report to the basement of the agency, where you will be provided with your uniform and other necessary equipment for the mission. We will then take a car to the airport, where we will then board a private flight to Japan and spend the night in a hotel. The next day, we will begin our investigation. I expect that you will take this mission as seriously as me, and I hope you treat it as a valuable opportunity to improve your current condition. _

“A hotel?” Tyler squawked from near Phil, where he had been reading along the whole time. “Ooh, romantic…”

“Shut up!” Phil managed to let out a real giggle this time, playfully swatting Tyler’s arm. “Hotels aren’t  _ that _ romantic…”

“Sure they are…” Tyler chuckled as he pulled Phil closer to him, letting the taller male curl up in a little ball and wrap his arms around his neck, much like a baby koala clinging to its mother. Phil found it extremely hard to sleep if he wasn’t cuddling some sort of large, soft, object, and the pillows that the Agency provided in their bunks weren’t exactly the most comfortable of objects to hold. Fortunately, Tyler was always perfectly willing to act as Phil’s platonic cuddle buddy every single night, and he always seemed to know just how to hug him in a manner that made Phil drop off within minutes. Of course, this almost always resulted in Tyler’s bunk never being used unless one of them was sick and didn’t want to be near the other, but 99% of the time the two spent their nights curled up together, talking about whatever happened to pop into their minds. “Hotels are the most romantic places in existence.”

“Fine. Explain how, then,” Phil smirked as he rested his head in the crook of Tyler’s neck. “How exactly are they romantic?”

“I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable again…” Tyler ran one of his hands through Phil’s hair, provoking a happy squeak from the man curled up against him. “I’ll try to be as non-graphic as possible, ‘kay?”

“Get on with it…” Phil sighed.

“I mean, isn’t it obvious? You’re alone… with him… in a room with a bed… come on, Phil! Haven’t you seen any of the movies?” Tyler exclaimed.

“Not since they launched Youtube, no…” Phil chuckled.

“Phiiiil… look, never mind.” Letting out a sigh and a chuckle, Tyler put his arms around Phil’s waist and gave his hips a firm little squeeze. “Good night, you dork…”  
“Good night…” Phil smiled, closing his eyes and holding the envelope and its contents tightly in one hand. However, despite the calm exterior he was trying to maintain, he was still panicking on the inside, his thoughts rocketing around his brain like the metal orb inside a pinball machine. It was as though Daniel was putting in quarter after quarter, sending his thoughts around in a whirlwind and setting off flashing lights and bells inside his mind that showed up as ringing in his ears and colored spots darting across his vision. Shaking his head weakly, he held on tighter to Tyler as he dug his fingers into the soft material of his shirt, biting his lip to prevent a bitter sob from escaping and trying to focus on something, anything else as he fell into a restless sleep.

~~~

The two days passed in almost no time at all, and the day of the mission soon arrived. When Phil finally awoke on that fateful Saturday, his eyes instantly flew open with a gasp when he realized what day it was, an overwhelming sense of dread and panic cascading over his body. He almost instantly tried to curl in on himself completely in what he supposed was an attempt to disappear completely; however, he had forgotten that he had fallen asleep in Tyler’s arms, and immediately panicked even more when he found that his motion was restricted, letting out a garbled screech as he desperately tried to pull out of Tyler’s grip.

Tyler let out an almost identical scream as he awoke suddenly to Phil’s flailing limbs accidentally kicking him and hitting him, almost immediately realizing what has happening and taking action by quickly working himself out of the flailing mass that was Phil, grabbing hold of his wrists while being careful not to hurt him and nudging them down to his sides so he would stop moving. “Woah, Phil, calm down! You’re gonna hurt yourself…”

Phil let out a shaky gasp, focusing on the feeling of Tyler’s hands gripping his skin in an attempt to ground himself as he began breathing slower and slower. Soon, he had managed to completely calm down with quite a bit of effort, pulling his arms free as he pressed his forehead against Tyler’s chest.

“You okay, Phil?” Tyler asked softly, gently running his fingers through Phil’s hair as he let the noiret catch his breath.

“I’m fine… I just remembered I have that mission with Daniel today…” Phil whimpered. “I can’t do this, Tyler, I just can’t do it…”

“Sure you can, Phil…” Tyler reassured him, tilting Phil’s head up to look at him. “I  _ know _ you can do this… you’re gonna be the best agent-in-training ever…”

“Have you seen me, Ty? Daniel said it himself… I’m out of shape, I’m overapolagetic, I’m clumsy…” Phil shook his head in an attempt to rid his eyes of the welling tears. “I’m not gonna be able to do it…”

“Phil, listen to me. I know you can do this… the whole point of this is for you to improve, right? You don’t have to be perfect right away… you’re gonna go on that mission, you’re gonna get even better than you are now, and you’re gonna be the best god-damned agent this Agency’s ever seen. Got it?” Tyler replied firmly, patting Phil’s shoulders.

“Got it… thank you, Tyler…” Phil managed a weak smile, giving his best friend a tight hug.

“You’re welcome…” Tyler returned the gesture, squeezing Phil tightly and gently rocking him back and forth to retain his calm mindset. “We should get some breakfast before you leave, huh?”

“Yeah, you’re right…” Phil nodded, shakily climbing out of bed and managing to remain in an upright position. Although Tyler had calmed him down quite a bit, he was still anxious about what the rest of the day- and the next couple of weeks- had in store. 

Phil managed to get some food down, mostly due to Tyler continuously poking a cereal-filled spoon against the side of his mouth and whispering the words “nom it down” in his ear for fifteen minutes. Tyler also helped him pack everything he needed to bring, as well as escorted him all the way down the upstairs hallway to Daniel’s office, pausing right outside the door. “Well… good luck, Phil…”

“Thanks, Tyler…” Phil put down his massive suitcase and gave Tyler a tight hug.

“Wait, hold on! I’ve got something for you… close your eyes.”

Slightly confused, Phil pulled back and closed his eyes, putting his hands into his back pockets. He felt a loose metal chain being draped around his neck and flinched slightly at how cold it was, but stayed still until Tyler told him to open his eyes. Upon opening his eyes and looking down, he immediately gasped in surprise. Hanging from the delicate silver chain around his neck was a tiny black onyx crystal, set into a teardrop shape. Phil recognized it immediately- Tyler wore this necklace almost every day, even when he was sleeping. “...Tyler, this is yours…”

“I know it is. But I want you to have it for your mission…” Tyler smiled. “It’s special to me…”

“I can’t just take it, though…” Phil shook his head, his shaky hands immediately pushing his hair back in an attempt to undo the clasp. “This is yours… it’s special to you, it’s yours, I can’t just take it for two whole weeks…”

“I know, but… just listen to me, okay, Phil?” Tyler pulled Phil’s hands back down to prevent him from taking the necklace off, linking his fingers with his own. “This is gonna sound stupid, but… it’s a good-luck item for me. Ever since I put it on, it’s helped me… I don’t know how, but it just has. I think it’ll do the same for you…” 

“Oh… t-thank you!” Phil let out a little chuckle, pulling Tyler into another hug. “Thank you so much, Tyler…”

“You’re welcome…” Tyler smiled, pulling away after a few seconds and playfully ruffling Phil’s hair, provoking an embarrassed squeak from his friend. “You’ve got this…”

Phil smiled at Tyler before turning around and taking a deep breath, putting his hand on the metal doorknob and opening the door. Daniel was sitting behind his desk and looking at his reflection in a small compact mirror as he applied some lipstick- this time it was a matte black shade that brought out the pupils of his eyes and matched his suit. As soon as Phil stepped into the room, he closed the lipstick container and his mirror, sticking them both into his back pocket as he stood up. “Ten minutes early, Lester… I’m impressed. Maybe you’re not as hopeless as I thought.”

“Thank you, sir…” Phil replied softly, nervously playing with the handle of his suitcase as he looked down at his scuffed-up sneakers.

“Don’t do that. ‘Sir’ is too formal.” Daniel stood up from his chair, walking across the room and picking up a suitcase that was in much better shape- and appeared to be packed much neater- than Phil’s. “You can call me Dan when we’re in private. In public, however, I expect you to call me Agent Gold. Got it, Lester?”

“Yes, s… Agent Gold,” Phil corrected himself, feeling a slight blush spread across his face as he bit his bottom lip anxiously.

“You learn fast…” Dan remarked, more to himself than Phil, as he crossed the room to the open door. He let Phil exit the room before he closed and locked the door. He then set off down the hall at a steady pace, Phil having to jog quickly to keep up. By the time they walked twenty feet down the hall to the elevator, Phil was panting hard and grasping the stitch in his side, trying to stand up straight and act perfectly fine despite the throbbing pain in his ribs. He noticed Dan glaring at him with distaste and felt his face heating up with embarrassment, and he chose to make a hasty retreat by darting into the still-opening elevator. 

Phil pressed himself into a corner of the elevator as Dan stepped inside, placing his suitcase in front of his feet and tucking his arms up to his chest protectively. Dan pressed one of the buttons then turned to Phil with a bemused expression. “There’s no need to do that… there’s plenty of room. You don’t have to squeeze yourself into a corner like that.”

“Oh… sorry.” Biting his lip, Phil moved over towards Dan, folding his hands in front of him as he timidly glanced up at him. At this angle, he realized that Dan was about one or two inches taller than him, and although this wasn’t a very significant height difference, it still made him feel like he was completely under the power of a more powerful, more important being.

“And stop saying sorry all the time. It’s annoying.” Dan pulled the lipstick tube and mirror from before out of his pocket, beginning to fix the lipstick job that he apparently wasn’t able to finish. Phil continued to gaze up at Dan, watching as the taller man applied the matte black colour to his lips without smudging it one bit. Although he hated to admit it, Tyler was right- Dan was extraordinarily attractive in general, but the addition of the lipstick made him look absolutely irresistible. He managed to force his eyes away from Dan, his eyes nervously darting around and eventually focusing on the elevator doors as they slowly opened.  _ Stop thinking about it, Phil… you’re gonna be stuck with this guy for two weeks, and he clearly doesn’t think of you of anything besides a nuisance. This is no time to be thinking about him that way! _

“Once we get to the main mission room you’re going to get a uniform,” Dan said suddenly, snapping Phil out of his thoughts. “Then I’m going to give you some weapons and other things you’re probably going to need. I’ll teach you how to use them tomorrow after we wake up. After that, we’ll be packing all of our bags in a rental car and driving to the airport.”

“I understand… but why are we taking a rental car, s… Dan?” Phil asked softly.

“So in case anybody is trying to sabotage the mission, they won’t be able to track the car back to the Agency,” Dan replied as he stepped towards a nondescript metal door and nudged it open with his foot, picking up Phil’s suitcase and immediately hurling it at someone who was standing just inside the doorway. “Get Lester’s uniform ready, put his bag in the rental car, and get one generic weapon pack for him. We need to get to the airport as soon as possible.” After a few seconds, he turned back around to face Phil, handing him something that was attached to a metal hanger and covered by a sheet. “Here’s your uniform. You can change in that room down the hall- the one with the white door. You can put your old clothes into the chute in there.

Nodding and taking the hanger from Dan, Phil padded a feet down the hall to the wooden door, painted with several coats of shiny white paint. He opened the door, finding that it was a small dressing room about the size of a closet. Shrugging and hanging the uniform on the single coat hook in the room, he examined his reflection in the mirror before beginning to change.

~~~

“Lester! What is taking so long in there!” Dan demanded, hammering on the door of the dressing room with his fist. “It doesn’t take fifteen minutes to put that uniform on!”

“I think something’s wrong with it!” Phil called back, letting out a tiny sigh as he stared at his reflection in the mirror. His uniform consisted of some sort of black blouse with rounded sleeves and royal purple accents, a bleached-white undershirt, a lilac purple tie, slimming black leggings, and shiny black combat boots. The blouse, shirt, and leggings were extremely tight on him, and while they weren’t causing him any sort of harm or discomfort, they clung tightly to him and greatly emphasized every curve and bulge of his body. Frowning and squeezing his extremely prominent love-handles, Phil turned back to the door. “It’s too tight on me…”

“Did they give you the wrong one or something?” Dan fell silent for a few seconds, then added, “What’s the number on the bottom of the left boot?”

Phil sat down on the floor and examined the bottom of his boot, reading off the long string of numbers from it. Almost immediately, Dan replied, “That’s the right one. It’s supposed to be a bit tight, you’re fine.”

“Yes, I know, but…”

“Come out and let me see it,” Dan replied, sounding rather annoyed with Phil already. “It can’t be that bad.”

Letting out a pitiful groan, Phil clambered to his feet and opened the door, keeping his head lowered and focusing on his shoes. Almost immediately, he heard a sharp intake of breath from Dan, followed by the sudden weight of his hands on his shoulders. Jolting and looking up, Phil felt his face heating up and his heart beginning to pound rapidly when he realized that Dan was staring at him. It wasn’t a stare full of anger or contempt, however- rather, his eyes were blown wide with possibly curiosity, his pupils slowly travelling from Phil’s terrified face down to his chest, then down to his hips and back up again. Phil resisted the urge to slap Dan’s hands away, digging his fingernails into his forearms as he silently begged the taller male to get his face away from his own. 

Finally, after about thirty agonizing seconds, Dan half-pushed Phil away from him, already turning around and beginning to go back down the hall. “You look great. It’s perfectly fine. Now are you gonna come get your equipment or not?” Phil stood stock-still for a split second before quickly darting after Dan, still trembling slightly as he tried to push the incident out of his mind.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SLIGHT TRIGGER WARNING: One of the characters has a panic attack towards the end of the chapter. I thought I would mention it ahead of time just in case.

The car ride to the airport was completely silent, apart from Dan occasionally requesting for their Uber driver to change the song that was playing on the radio. Phil rested his head against the cold glass of the car window, repeatedly pushing the fingers of his right hand through his hair and messing it up completely, but he didn’t care at this point. His heart was pounding quickly with anticipation and anxiety, and possibly a small bit of excitement. Japan was one place that he had always wanted to visit, and he was finally going to experience it- not in the most ideal of circumstances, but still. Managing a tiny smile, he reached one hand into the collar of his shirt and began playing with the chain of the necklace Tyler had given him. It was an extremely gorgeous object, he had to admit; however, it was so small and fragile that he worried about breaking it or losing it due to his clumsiness and forgetfulness.

The two men still refused to share any words until their flight had taken off. Dan appeared to be ready to fall asleep- he was gripping a pillow with a black and grey pillowcase and hugging it tightly, his head already beginning to bob forwards slowly and his eyes beginning to flutter shut. This wasn’t much of a surprise to Phil- their flight would take around twelve hours, and sleeping would most likely take up a large chunk of time. Fishing his knotted and tangled earbuds out of his carry-on bag with a sigh, Phil began his futile attempt to untangle them, letting out a groan of frustration as all he managed to do was get the wires even more knotted. 

“Let me do it.” Dan apparently wasn’t as sleepy as Phil thought, since he instantly sat up and plucked the earbuds out of his hands, immediately beginning to work on the knots. “What the hell did you do to these?”

“I didn’t do anything to them… they were fine when I put them in my bag, I don’t know what happened…” Phil mumbled. 

“You should wrap them around a piece of cardboard or something… that way, they don’t get messed up so easily.” A few seconds later, Dan dumped the now tangle-free earbuds on Phil’s lap. “You’re welcome. I’m going to sleep now.” He picked up his pillow and hugged it close to him, his head dropping forward as he burrowed the lower half of his face into the pillow. Forcing out a quiet giggle at how fast Dan had attempted to drop off, Phil put his earbuds in and put on a random playlist, managing a tiny smile as he looked out the window at the cloudy London sky.

~~~

Phil couldn’t help but let out a gasp of surprise as he stepped out of the airport and gazed up at the darkened Tokyo sky, illuminated by the bright lights and billboards surrounding him. He couldn’t help but pull his phone out of his pocket and snap several photos, not even bothering to move out of the middle of the pavement for the people walking by.

“Yes, it’s pretty. Come on, Lester… we’re getting some food.” Dan took hold of Phil’s forearm and pulled him quickly, but not roughly, down the pavement. “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah I am!” Phil grinned, his intimidation by the taller male being temporarily replaced with an enormous rush of adrenaline and excitement as he insisted on stopping every five seconds to take pictures. He could have sworn Dan was smiling at him every time despite his exasperated voice telling him to stop stalling and to hurry up, but he was pretty sure he was just imagining it. Eventually, Dan just pulled Phil into the nearest restaurant to keep him from blocking up the walkway any more than he already had. Phil was a tiny bit annoyed, but mostly relieved- his stomach had been growling angrily at him for the past three hours, even though he had engorged himself with food on the flight. 

Dan quickly pulled Phil over to a corner booth and gently pushing him into one of the seats, sitting down in the other side. Once more, Phil could have sworn that he saw Dan briefly smile at him before picking up his menu and dramatically hiding his face behind it. Phil let out a tiny giggle, barely able to comprehend what he was doing.  _ What are you even doing? Just yesterday you were terrified of him… how are you already amused by him?  _ Reaching underneath the table and pinching his inner thigh through his leggings to snap himself out of it, Phil picked up his own menu and tried to fill his boggled mind with thoughts of food. 

~~~

“Lester.”

“Yes?” Phil asked softly, glancing up from his sushi. Dan was twirling one of his chopsticks around in his fingers and resting his head on his hand, almost as though he had been watching Phil before he spoke. 

“We need to talk,” Dan replied, placing the chopstick with its twin on top of his almost-empty plate. 

“About what?” Phil asked, feeling his stomach sink.  _ Have I already done something wrong?  _

“No need to worry. It’s nothing bad.” Dan reassured him. “However, it is pretty important.” He paused what he was saying to murmur a “thank you” to the waiter as he deposited the check on the table. “Now, as you know, we’re going to be spending quite a lot of time together in the next two weeks, and it’s going to be quite awkward if we spend the entire time not knowing anything about each other. So.” Taking out his wallet and counting out several twenty-pound notes, Dan placed the money on the table with the bill. “Tell me something interesting about yourself.”

“There’s nothing very interesting about me,” Phil replied softly with a slow shake of his head, folding his hands in his lap as he stared at his empty plate. 

“Don’t lie to me, Lester. If you expect me to believe that there’s not a single interesting thing about you, then you’re mistaken.” Dan reached into his pocket and pulled out his mirror, examining his lips in the mirror to make sure the lipstick hadn’t smudged before putting it back. “Now, tell me something interesting about yourself. And don’t try to lie to me again, since we’re not leaving until you tell me.”

“Um, okay…” Phil paused for several moments, racking his brain and trying to find something to tell Dan. “I… I like the color blue… that’s not very interesting, I know, but I couldn’t think of anything else…”

“What shade of blue?” Dan asked.

“What shade? Um… I don’t know. Light blue, I guess.” Phil shrugged.

“Like your eyes?”

“Uh… yeah.” Phil nodded. “I guess…”

Dan nodded, leaning across the table towards Phil. However, rather than getting ridiculously close to him like before, he simply got close enough so that he could reach out and gently cup his cheek with his hand. Phil jolted but held still, watching as Dan gazed into his eyes with something that could have been wonder as he spoke in a soft voice. “Your eyes are actually quite beautiful… that shade of blue is just absolutely lovely. It’s not just plain blue, though…” He gently titled Phil’s head up a bit so that the light from the chandelier hanging above their table partially reflected in his eyes. “...when the light shines off of them, you can see these gorgeous little specks of green and yellow… I’d say that’s something interesting,” he concluded as he leaned back and stood up, gesturing for Phil to do the same. “Come along now. We don’t start our investigation until tomorrow- care to walk around the city for a bit?”

“Oh… sure!” Phil forced out another little smile as he got to his feet, still shaken up from what Dan had said to him.  _ He called me… beautiful? Gorgeous? _ Letting out a soft sigh, Phil was about to follow Dan towards the door but paused as he caught sight of two people standing just outside the door of the restaurant. They didn’t appear to be regular people from Tokyo, and they didn’t appear to be tourists either. They were dressed in grey trench coats and had fedoras on, the brims lowered so the shadows covered their faces. Frowning, he took hold of Dan’s arm and gave it a small tug. “Who are those people, Dan?” he whispered into Dan’s ear.

“I don’t know, but they’re not good. We’re gonna have to figure something out.” Dan turned around to Phil, quickly reaching into one of the pockets of his pants and pulling out a small black drawstring bag, which he pressed into Phil’s hands. “Here’s what we’re gonna do- we’re gonna open that door, and we’re gonna run down the sidewalk as fast as possible. If those people even move towards you, then open the bag and throw it at them, no questions asked.”

“What is it, though?” Phil asked, shaking the bag and hearing a metallic rattle inside.

“Just trust me. Get ready to throw.” Dan practically threw the door open, dragging Phil outside and screaming at him to run. Almost immediately, the people in front of the store lunged towards them both in an instant. Letting out a screech of terror, Phil hurled the drawstring bag at the two people and bolting down the sidewalk without even looking back. He heard the clatter of metal pieces dinging against the pavement, followed by a loud popping noise that sounded like a cluster of small explosions behind him. Phil didn’t even turn around to examine the carnage- he simply kept running despite the throbbing pain in his chest and legs, frantically dodging past people on the pavement as his frantic, desperate wheezes for breath caused spots to appear in front of his vision. When he finally skidded to a stop, he was on the verge of passing out, leaning against a building and desperately trying to stay upright. He had no idea what had motivated him to sprint down the street for several blocks, but now his tremendous unathleticism was catching up to him as he felt his entire body shaking with exhaustion and spots danced in front of his eyes.

“What are you doing?” Dan skidded to a stop near him. “Those guys are still chasing after us, why did you stop?”

“I can’t…” Phil let out a pathetic half-sob. “Please, it hurts, I can’t run anymore…”

“For fuck’s sake…” Dan practically threw Phil onto his shoulder, wrapping one arm around his waist as he darted down the pavement and turned down onto a side street. Letting out a startled scream at the sudden action, Phil reached down and grabbed hold of the back of Dan’s shirt, terrified of being dropped by the taller male. He could see the two people from before chasing after them, and they were quickly catching up. 

Dan was suddenly darting down a back alley and dumping Phil unceremoniously on the ground as he pulled his lipstick tube out of the back pocket, fumbling with the metal tube until there was a barely audible click. Before Phil could ask what he was doing, Dan stuck his hand around the corner without even looking to see what he was doing, twisting the cap around once. Instantly, there was a sickening crack of electricity, a bright blue and white flash flickering briefly followed by two pained yells from around the corner. Phil let out a little gasp and covered his ears with his hands as he squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head quickly. It was already too much for him- the screaming, the crackle of the hidden taser, the bright lights… his senses were overwhelmed in the most horrible way, warm tears welling in his eyes as he felt his heart thumping rapidly in his chest. Even when the noises and lights had finally stopped, Phil was still on the verge of sobs, his small form shuddering rapidly as he cried not to fully panic; however, this was proving extremely difficult. 

“Lester?” Frowning, Dan crouched on the ground in front of Phil, shaking his shoulders repeatedly. “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“I don’t like it…” Phil whispered with a frantic shake of his head, tears dripping down his cheeks as he let out a whimper. “I don’t like it…”

“What don’t you like? Was it the taser that startled you?” Dan asked gently, pushing Phil’s messy hair back into place so he could see his face clearly.

“Yeah…” Phil replied breathlessly, reaching up and rubbing his eyes with his hands as he continued to cry quietly. 

“Shit… I’m sorry, I didn’t know it would scare you… fuck!” Dan slapped the inside of his own arm as if to punish himself for his actions, then reached forward and gently cupped Phil’s cheek, rubbing his thumb over the pale skin as he rubbed away Phil’s tears. “Hey, hey, you don’t need to cry… it’s over now, okay? I didn’t know it would frighten you… it’s okay now, there’s no more noise, it’s fine…” When his words seemed to be doing nothing to calm Phil down, he reached forward and awkwardly pulled the noiret into a hug, rubbing one hand up and down his back and ignoring Phil’s innocent squeak of surprise.

Phil’s eyes had blown wide with surprise at the gesture on Dan’s part, in wild disbelief at what was happening, but he still managed to hug the taller male in response. Resting his head against Dan’s shoulder and continuing to let out tiny sobs, he let his tears completely soak Dan’s clothing. As he released his emotions in a torrent of tears, he realized that Dan was still continuing to squeeze him tightly, whispering soft calming words into his ear. “Shh, you’re alright, I’ve got you… let it out, you’re okay… breathe for me, okay? I’ve got you…” He was in too much of a hysterical state to find this unusual, and rather found it extremely comforting instead.

When Phil managed to calm himself down almost completely, he kept his tight hold on Dan for a few long moments more, savoring the feel of the taller male’s strong arms wrapped around his back, before reluctantly pulling away, murmuring “I’m okay now” as he kept his head lowered.

“You sure?” Dan asked quietly. When Phil nodded in response, Dan stood up and offered a hand to Phil, pulling him up into a standing position. “Okay then. When we get to the hotel, you can stay up as late as you want. Just don’t keep me awake in the process, got it, Lester?”

“Yes, Dan…” Phil nodded, slowly following Dan out of the alley and gingerly stepping over the bodies of the two people Dan had tased before. “...that lipstick taser was actually pretty cool, though.”

“Thank you. Now keep walking,” Dan replied firmly, seeming to not want to have to talk about what had just occurred. Keeping a close distance behind Dan, Phil watched the curls on the back of his head bounce with every step he took, beginning to match his footsteps as they set off down the pavement once again.


	4. Chapter 4

There was only one bed in the hotel room.

The instant the two had walked into the bedroom and caught sight of the single queen-size bed pushed against one of the walls, Dan had immediately let out a stream of four-letter curses, throwing his suitcase down on the floor so hard the lid popped open and allowed multiple articles of mostly black clothing to fly out of it from the impact. As Phil continued to stand still in the doorway, he watched Dan dig his phone out of his back pocket and dial a number, beginning to yell at the person on the other end. “What the fuck, Urie! I thought you said there would be _two beds!_... No, there’s one bed! Why do you think I’m calling you right now?... What do you mean you’re not gonna do anything about it? Of course it’s necessary!... No, you listen!...”

_It’s just like a really cliche fanfiction,_ Phil couldn’t help but think, letting out a cross between a chuckle and a sigh. Setting his own suitcase on the bed, he knelt down and began to organize the clothing that had fallen out of Dan’s case. Every article of clothing in the case was pure black, except for a tan sweater that somewhat reminded Phil of a potato sack. He ignored Dan’s screaming outside and meticulously folded the clothing back up, putting it back in the suitcase and closing it. Once he finished, he stepped back outside, timidly watching as Dan paced angrily around the kitchen. He seemed to have calmed down a little bit, but not completely, and he seemed to be losing the argument that was going on with the Urie person on the other end. “No, listen to me, listen to me… I’m _not_ sharing a bed with him! I barely even know the guy, I’m not exchanging sweat with him every night for two weeks!... Look, how hard is it to just call the hotel and get us a new room? I thought you were high up in the Agency for a reason!” Suddenly, his entire face changed back into its default deadpan expression as he looked down at the floor, staying silent as the person on the other end said something to him. Finally, he replied, “Fine. I’ll do it. But don’t expect me to enjoy it.”

“Who was that?” Phil asked hesitantly.

“My boss. He’s just below the president of the Agency. He’s a nice guy, but sometimes he doesn’t make any fucking sense… fucking hell!” Dan sighed and leaned against the kitchen island, beginning to undo his tie. “I _specifically_ asked him to find us a hotel room with at least two beds, and of course he gets us what may as well be a fucking _couple’s suite…_ ”

“I’m pretty sure if it was a couple's suite there would be flower petals and condoms everywhere…” Phil murmured, more to himself than Dan.

To Phil’s surprise, Dan actually let out a breathy chuckle at that. “I guess you have a point, Lester… I don’t see any condoms, do you?”

“No…” Phil laughed quietly. “So, um… you didn’t seem too pleased about the whole bedroom thing… if you want me to, I can sleep on the couch or something.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Dan immediately replied. “Look… remember what I said back at the restaurant about getting to know each other better? I guess this could be another way…”

“By exchanging sweat for the next two weeks?” Phil joked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Something like that…” Dan frowned, walking past Phil into the bedroom. “I’m gonna get changed first. Don’t come in.”

Phil let out a little sigh as Dan slammed the bedroom door hard enough to make the frame shake. As he moved past the bedroom to go into the living room, he felt a pang of guilt in his chest as he heard barely audible crying from behind the door. _Just leave him alone… of course he’s under a lot of stress, the poor guy has to deal with you for two weeks. He doesn’t want to interact with you more than he has to._

~~~

“Good night, Lester. We’re waking up at 9am tomorrow, so get some rest.” Dan rolled over onto his side, his legs slightly nudging against Phil as he hugged his pillow to his chest. Letting out a little sigh, Phil rolled onto his side and faced the other side of the room, playing with the corner of the scratchy hotel pillowcase. Once again, the time leading up to them going to bed had been completely silent and awkward, despite Dan reassuring him that “they should know each other better.” It didn’t help that Dan had been walking around in just his boxers and an oversized shirt that according to him were appropriate to use as pajamas. Phil couldn’t help but look over at Dan every few minutes as they sat in the living room quietly, feeling rather guilty but somewhat flustered as he glanced at Dan’s bare legs. He somehow managed to convince himself to get up and go into the bedroom, and Dan soon joined him a few minutes later.

Now, Phil had managed to take his mind off of Dan’s attire and was now focused mostly on the man himself- specifically, how absolutely freezing cold his legs were. Even though Dan was facing away from him, his bare legs were still rubbing against him, and they were extraordinarily frigid. It wasn’t like he could shift his own body further away either, since he was already right on the edge of the mattress out of fear of bumping into Dan completely. Instead, he was forced to hold completely still, cringing as Dan’s cold legs tangled up with his own, quietly begging for the brunet to move his feet away.

After a few agonizing minutes, Phil let out a sigh of relief when he felt Dan move his legs away and allowed him to roll over the other way himself; however, he soon followed up with a quiet squeak of shock as Dan rolled over until he was practically on top of him, their legs still tangled together as one arm flopped partially on Phil’s hip. Phil desperately tried to push Dan away from him, his breath beginning to quicken as he realized _just how close_ Dan’s face was to his, but the other man was just too heavy. He eventually realized that it wouldn’t work, and instead pressed his head against Dan’s shoulder, which was slightly better than having their faces right against each other but was still extremely awkward.

To Phil’s surprise, he found that even though Dan was sprawled halfway on top of him, out cold and snoring loudly in his ear, having one arm caressing him and holding him close was actually rather comforting. Managing a little smile despite his rapidly pounding heart, Phil tried his best to stay still so Dan wouldn’t wake up, glancing up at the brunet. Dan’s fluffy curls were flopping in front of his face, his closed eyes accented by thick black lashes. There was a little rosy patch on his right cheek that was somehow still visible in the dark, and one of his eyebrows was adorably messed up from sleeping on his side. His mouth was slightly open in his sleep, his lips a pretty natural peach colour due to their lack of lipstick at this point in time. In this asleep state, Dan no longer seemed like the intimidating and violent person he was. Rather, he seemed vulnerable and innocent, no longer made up of sharp angles but of soft, abstract shapes. _I hate to admit it, but Tyler was right… he is really attractive,_ Phil thought to himself, gaping wide-eyed at Dan as he slept. Sure, Dan was his superior and would probably kick his ass if he knew what Phil was thinking right now, but there was no denying the facts- he was the most beautiful person Phil had ever laid eyes on in his life.

Still gazing at Dan in wonder, Phil reached out and ran his fingers through his curls, moving slowly and gently so he wouldn’t wake him up. He froze when Dan let out a cute little squeak in his sleep, but relaxed when Dan simply adjusted and shifted a bit closer to him. Smiling, Phil continued to play with Dan’s hair for a few more minutes, obsessed with the feeling of the silky strands without a single tangle or knot running through his fingers. Eventually, he forced himself to pull his hand away, taking one final look at Dan’s gorgeous face before closing his eyes and attempting to fall asleep.

~~~

Dan was quite possible the slowest person in the world when it came to getting ready. He had insisted on both of them getting dressed and going over the day’s plan for the beginning of their investigation before getting breakfast; however, he had been in the bathroom getting ready for the past thirty minutes. Phil actually felt nauseous from how hungry he was, and he still had no idea what he was even doing that day. “...Dan? A-are you almost done?”

“Yes! God, no patience…” Phil heard Dan call from the bathroom. Letting out a sigh, Phil laid sideways on the couch and began scrolling through Twitter in an attempt to occupy himself. A few minutes later, Dan came strolling into the living room like he hadn’t just taken half an hour to put his uniform and makeup on. Rather than wearing his regular black and gold suit, he was wearing a black and white striped sweater and skinny jeans, as well as a pair of black boots that Phil could have sworn had heels. He accompanied his clothing with a comically oversized camera hanging around his neck and a black baseball cap with a white sad face embroidered on it. He had also meticulously applied a bit of blush that almost completely blended in with the rosy patch on his cheek, as well as the same garnet-red lipstick he had worn when he and Phil first met.

“Alright. Get comfy, because we’ve got a lot to go through.” Dan went into the bedroom and came back out with his laptop, sitting down and beginning to type on it as he spoke to Phil. “This isn’t your average criminal. Sure, he might just be stealing things and blowing up buildings, but he’s extremely dangerous. According to our research so far, he’s got an extensive weapons stash hidden beneath the streets of Japan. We’ve also been tracking his movements throughout the the globe, and we’ve predicted he’s located somewhere near our hotel, but we don’t know where. So today, we’re going to be doing a bit of a ‘private investigation,’ if you want to call it that.”

Phil nodded slowly. “I think I understand…”

“You’d better understand. I’d rather you not pitifully mess up on your first day.” Dan sighed. “We’re going to be posing as just regular tourists in the Akihabara shopping district. However, we’re going to be on the lookout for anything suspicious in the process. So yes, I will allow you to buy stuff, but only so you appear as just another regular tourist. You must be on a constant lookout for anything that sees out of place or dangerous.”

“Got it.” Phil nodded. “...can we get some breakfast first?”

“Of course we’re getting breakfast. I can’t work on an empty stomach.” Dan got to his feet and spun around in a little half-circle so that he was facing the mirror by the front door, using the heel of his hand to wipe away a bit of makeup that had smudged across his chin before turning back around. “Are you coming or no?”

“I’m coming…” Phil smiled, getting up and padding out the door after Dan.

~~~

“ _This is amazing!_ ”

Phil could hardly contain his excitement. Everywhere he looked were brightly colored shops and restaurants, billboards and posters emblazoned with excited anime characters, and tall buildings that seemed to quite literally scrape the clouds in the sky. It took every ounce of his willpower to not run into every store and buy everything out of sheer excitement. In retrospect, he realized that he did, in fact, look like an overly hyper and annoying tourist, which was their goal. In the moment, however, he was much too in awe to focus on the job at hand, despite Dan occasionally swatting his forearm to remind him of what they were supposed to be doing. Within twenty minutes, Phil had shopping bags from four different stores dangling from his arms, and he didn’t feel like stopping any time soon, especially since he still had quite a bit of money left.

“Daaaan! Dan-Dan-Dan-Dan-Dan! Look at this!” Phil squealed, grabbing Dan’s arm and pulling him into one of the stores, gesturing to a display of life-sized anime character cutouts. “These are so cool!”

“Yeah…” Dan let out a little chuckle, shaking his head in what could have possibly been amusement. “You can take a look around if you want, but be quick… I’ll be waiting outside for you, ‘kay?”

Phil nodded eagerly. “You want me to buy you something while I’m in here? You haven’t bought anything yet…”

Dan shook his head, taking his hat off so he could fix a few wayward curls before putting it back on. “You don’t have to do that…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find something nice for you!” Without waiting for Dan to finish, Phil turned and began darting through the isles, determined to find a suitable gift for his superior. _Maybe he’ll like you more after this! Let’s see… maybe he’d want a shirt? I don’t know what size he is, though… maybe one of these little figurines! These are cute! I don’t know if he’d like this, though… it doesn’t have any black._ As Phil began examining some Pokemon hoodies, he sighed to himself. This was much harder than he expected.

Eventually, Phil decided on three Yuri on Ice figurines- he wasn’t sure if Dan even watched that anime, but they were cute, so he figured Dan might like them. He paid for them and quickly darted back outside, already calling Dan’s name excitedly. However, his companion wasn’t standing in the same place where he was when he went into the store. In fact, Dan was nowhere to be seen- which was highly unusual, since Dan’s ridiculously large stature made him taller than any of the other people walking by. Feeling his heart rate beginning to speed up, Phil frantically scanned his surroundings for Dan, but he was nowhere to be found. Swearing under his breath, Phil began darting frantically down the pavement, trying not to cry as he desperately searched for his companion, calling out his name. “Dan? Dan, where are you? Stop hiding, this isn’t funny! _Dan!!_ ”

Soon, Phil had to stop and lean against a building to catch his breath, breathing heavily as he held back tears. At this point, he knew that Dan wouldn’t deliberately walk off and leave him alone like that- something must have happened to him while he was in the store. As Phil tried to clear his head and come up with a plan, he happened to look up and noticed a person dressed all in grey standing on the other side of the road. Phil felt his breath hitch- they looked exactly like one of the people who had been standing outside the sushi restaurant their first night in Tokyo. He tried his best to act normal, pretending to look at his phone as he checked out the person.

The person was talking to someone who looked like a young musician- she was holding a few pages of sheet music in one hand and was holding a large rolling instrument case in the other hand. At first, nothing seemed wrong- the two just seemed to be having a conversation, and for a split second Phil thought it was merely a coincidence that the person was dressed all in grey. But then, just as Phil was about to look away, he saw the instrument case jolt violently and almost roll out into the street from the impact, almost as though someone had kicked it from the inside. The musician quickly grabbed the case to keep it from rolling away, slapping the top of it extremely hard. The realization hit Phil like a falling piano- there was somebody, most likely Dan, inside the case. But he had absolutely no idea what to do about it. _Look, Phil, you need to do something now! They have Dan and they’re gonna do God knows what to him if you don’t help him! Just go over there and figure something out!_

With a shaky breath, Phil quickly darted across the street, getting honked at by several taxis in the process, and skidded to a stop in front of the two people, immediately straightening up and beginning to talk despite their curious looks. “Hi, um… this is going to sound rather strange, but… I’m actually on vacation here, and I still don’t know my way around very well, so… do either of you happen to know where there’s a Starbucks around here?”

The musician said something in Japanese, pulling a piece of paper out of her pocket and beginning to write down directions to the Starbucks. She had to use both hands to do this, leaving the instrument case unguarded. Phil made a split-second decision, grabbing the case and pushing it in front of him as he ran as fast as he could. He could hear two angry yells, followed by footsteps as the two people began darting after him. Running while pushing the case was simply too slow- he would be caught in no time. He decided to resort to plan B, hopping on top of the case and pushing it with one leg. This proved to be much quicker, as one push sent him soaring down the pavement and across two intersections. He almost ran into several people in the process, but he could care less. His top priority was outrunning these people, while keeping Dan safe in the process. The wind whipped his hair in front of his face and stung his cheeks, his heart throbbing in his chest and his muscles straining to push the case while holding onto it.

After travelling an agonizingly large amount of city blocks, Phil looked behind him and heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that the two people were nowhere in sight. He hopped off of the case and managed to drag it to a stop, pulling it into an alleyway and ignoring the strange looks he got from people as he pushed it along. Eventually, when he reached an area where there were no other people around, he quickly unlatched and opened the case. Dan was curled up into a tiny ball inside the case, his lanky six-foot-three frame painfully crammed into the narrow dimensions. The sleeves and back of his sweater had ridden up to reveal several painful-looking bruises that had most likely gotten there in a struggle against his captors. When the case was opened, Dan immediately squinted and covered his face with his hands due to how bright the light was, speaking into his palms. “I’m not answering any of your questions, you bastards. Don’t even bother…”

“Dan? Dan, it’s me, Phil! You’re okay…” Phil frowned, leaning into the case and holding out his hand for Dan to grab.

“Phil?” Almost immediately, Dan’s voice changed from harsh and stubborn to fondness, lowering his hands as he managed to look up at Phil. Phil felt his heart break when he saw several scratches and cuts on Dan’s face as well. “W-wait, what happened? How did you… did you?...” he babbled in confusion, his eyes blown wide with bemusement.

“Shh, it’s okay! Let’s get you out of here, you’re probably all cramped up…” Phil reached down and grabbed Dan’s arms, pulling him into a sitting position. He then helped Dan to his feet, holding his forearm with one hand and putting the other on the small of his back, then let him step out of the case. He frowned when he saw that Dan could barely stand up, since his legs had fallen asleep from being in the case for so long- the instant he tried to take a step, his knees buckled and he quickly grabbed onto Phil’s arm to keep from face planting onto the pavement. Letting out a sad little sigh, Phil retrieved Dan’s frowny-face hat from the floor of the instrument case and placed it on top of his curls, managing a little smile when the adorable man gazed up at him with wide brown eyes for a few seconds before grabbing the brim of hat and timidly pulling it down to hide his face. “Look, I’ll call an Uber, and we can get back to the hotel, okay? Then we can talk about what happened…”

“Okay…” Dan nodded with a weak little smile, looking down at the ground. Phil noticed that his whole demeanor had changed completely- he appeared too shy to make eye contact with Phil for too long, his toes tilted inward and his entire body trembling anxiously. _He’s probably really shaken up_ , Phil thought to himself as he retrieved his phone from his pocket. After he phoned an Uber, Phil began slowly leading Dan back to the main road, making sure that Dan wouldn’t fall over in the process. Once they exited the alleyway, he let Dan lean against a wall, protectively wrapping one arm around his shoulders despite the ridiculous height difference. His eyes turned to the bag from the anime store that was still hanging from one of his wrists- this wasn’t exactly the ideal time to give Dan what he had bought him, but he figured it would be a valid attempt to comfort him.

“Here… this is what I bought for you back there,” Phil said quietly, handing the bag to Dan.

“Phiiiil… I told you not to buy me anything…” Dan sighed as he opened the bag. However, his eyes lit up when he saw what was inside. “...how did you know I liked Yuri on Ice? I love that anime!”

“Really?” Phil asked with a smile.

“Yeah!” Dan nodded. He attempted to turn and give Phil a hug, but winced due to the pain in his side and simply nodded. “T-thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Phil nodded back, squeezing Dan’s shoulders gently and turning his attention back to the busy streets.


	5. Chapter 5

When the two got back to the hotel room, Phil took it upon himself to make sure Dan was okay, despite his superior’s protests of “I can do it myself”. He managed to move around enough of the makeup that Dan had used to claim his space on the bathroom counter in order to make enough room for Dan to sit down. (He didn’t understand why one person needed three tubes of mascara- they were all the same color, so they all did the same thing, right?) Dan was feeling stubborn and didn’t want to take his sweater off, so Phil had to settle for the older male rolling up his sleeves and lifting the hem of the garment up enough for him to take care of the bruises. Phil couldn’t help but feel a little pang of guilt each time he attempted to cover up one of the bruises or cuts with a plaster- Dan would always flinch under his touch and let out a pitiful cry of pain that sounded like a scared puppy, which made Phil wonder what on earth those people had done to Dan to make the bruises hurt that much. Once he had dealt with the injuries on his arms, back, and tummy, he turned his attention up to Dan’s face- the cuts here weren’t nearly as bad as on the rest of his body, so he didn’t put plasters on them. He instead chose to disinfect them and wash Dan’s face, washing off his makeup in the process but not really minding. While his superior looked extremely attractive with makeup on, it was a type of beauty that reminded Phil of an artifact in a museum, to be looked at but not touched. It made him seem hard and emotionless, as if he was just a colored piece of canvas rather than an actual person. Without the unnatural colors on his face, Dan seemed less like something to be intimidated by, but more like a pillow or stuffed animal that you could easily shower with love and affection without worrying about breaking it. In this state, he reminded Phil that despite the hard and emotionless exterior he put forward, he was still a person with real feelings who needed attention sometimes, just like everyone else. 

“Is that better?” Phil asked once he finished, helping Dan step onto the ground as he was still a bit shaky from being in the crate.

“Yes… thank you for taking care of me,” Dan replied quietly. With some effort, he made his way out to the living room, sitting down on the couch and gesturing for Phil to sit on the cushion near him. Phil obeyed his request, not making any more physical contact with Dan for the moment. “I… I assume you want to know what happened…”

Phil nodded eagerly. “Who were those people? What did they want with you?”

“I’ll get to that. Just please be patient,” Dan replied with a little shake of his head. “Basically, I was just standing outside waiting for you, and this girl came up to me. She looked like she was gonna cry, she was saying that somebody was hurt and she couldn’t call an ambulance… I didn’t think anything of it, I just went with her.” He sighed and began untying the laces of his boots as he spoke, massaging his sore feet as he removed them. “I’m following her, and she leads me down this back alley, and I get confused because there’s no one else there… then all of a sudden this guy just pins me down and starts beating me up…”

“Oh my god…” Phil whispered with a little shake of his head. “Y-you couldn’t get away from him?”

“I tried… normally I’d be able to just push him away and run off, but that guy must have been on steroids or some shit… he was just too strong, I couldn’t get away from him…” Dan sighed out as he set his untied boots on the ground by the couch and tucked his knees up to his chest, tucking his feet in between the couch cushions. “I think I blacked out at some point, ‘cause when I woke up I was in that box. And that’s where you came in, I guess,” he shrugged.

“That sounds awful…” Phil murmured, lowering his head and shaking it slowly.

“Yeah… but I’m okay now, right? Because of you…” Dan let out a little chuckle. “What even happened, though? What did you do?”

Phil recounted the whole story to Dan, only realizing one little fact he had missed himself at the end-  _ He called me Phil when I opened the case. Not Lester. He called me Phil like two times… _ “You’re sure you’re okay, though?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’m actually extremely impressed by how you acted in this situation, though,” Dan smiled, already beginning to slip back into his formal persona. “Maybe you’re not as hopeless as I originally thought, Lester.”

“Thank you…” Phil smiled and looked down at the couch cushions, feeling his face heat up with a happy blush as he folded his hands in his lap.

Dan smiled back and nodded, getting to his feet with a bit of effort and stretching his arms above his head. “Right, then… I’ll be making a video call to my supervisors and giving them a report of what happened today. You don’t have to join me, you can relax for a while. I need a bit of time alone just to talk to Brendon, okay?”

“Okay…” Phil nodded and remained on the couch as Dan left and retreated into the bedroom. He let out a little sigh as he watched Dan’s fluffy curls disappear through the doorway, defying gravity and lifting up a bit with every step. Phil let out a happy little sigh once Dan had closed the door, dramatically flopping across the whole couch as he crossed his arms underneath his head. His heart was fluttering in his chest in the best way as an overjoyed giggle escaped his lips, draping one leg over the arm of the couch and bending it at the knee.  _ Why does he have to be so cute all the time?! I don’t even think he realizes he’s doing it half the time… why is he doing this to me? _

A rush of emotions- mostly joy and hopelessness- rushed through Phil’s system as he tried to make sense of his thoughts. At this moment in time, he knew for a fact that he loved Dan, even though the two had only interacted with each other for a matter of days. But Dan  _ clearly _ didn’t feel the same way, and to make matters worse, Phil couldn’t just ask out his superior. It would cause a scandal within the Agency, and worst of all make Dan  _ extremely _ upset with him- possibly even hate him. Phil couldn’t risk it- until they concluded the mission and returned to London, then maybe he could tell Dan how he really felt.  _ Maybe.  _ For now, he would have to pray to every deity imaginable that the love of his life wouldn’t be pulled out of his grasp. And if what had happened that morning was an indicative sample of what was to come, it would be next to impossible to protect Dan. All he could do was hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it was a rather short filler chapter with a rushed ending. The next chapter will be much more interesting, I promise.


	6. Chapter 6

A few uneventful days passed. The two didn’t make any major advancements in terms of finding out who their subject was, so the two had a bit more time than usual to talk like acquaintances. Every single day, Phil found himself hopelessly falling deeper and deeper in love with the brunet, much to the point where there was a physical pain deep in his chest every time he so much as looked at him. He couldn’t understand how one person could serve as a paragon of such elegance and beauty- if Dan wasn’t constantly asking him what he was doing and why he was acting so weird, Phil would stare at him for hours on end just admiring his appearance. It wasn’t just his physical being that attracted Phil, however- despite Dan’s arrogance and bossiness, there were several desirable qualities that one could only notice if you watched him closely. His sense of humor, his laser-sharp focus… and his kindness and fondness for Phil, which was very rarely ever expressed unless Phil was feeling particularly downtrodden and needed comfort. On those rare occasions, Dan would pull Phil into a gentle hug, telling him things that hovered just on the border between platonic comfort and romantic affection. “You can tell me what’s wrong, you know… we’re in this together, right? We’ve got to make sure we’re okay… It’ll be fine. Trust me…”

Eventually, three days after they first arrived in Tokyo, Dan shook Phil awake at a ridiculously early hour. Phil couldn’t help but let out a groan of frustration at being woken up so early, hiding his face deeper into his pillow as he curled up into a tiny ball under the hotel sheets. “It’s too early… five more minutes, come on…”

“Lester, today is extremely important. We’ve got a new development on our suspect. Get out of bed.” Dan sighed, grabbing the edge of the blankets and pulling them off of Phil. Phil let out a little shriek as the cold air hit him, curling up tighter and shaking his head slowly as he squinted in the bright light emanating from the lamp on the bedside table. Dan sighed and let out a small chuckle as he nudged Phil’s side with his hand as an attempt to get him up. “Come on, rat. I’ll make some coffee for you.”

“Rat?” Phil asked as he sat up, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“Yep. Rat. You want any sugar or cream?” Dan asked, seemingly ignoring how confused Phil seemed with his new nickname.

“Um… sure. Plenty of both.” Nodding slowly, Phil shakily got to his feet and began digging through his suitcase.

~~~

“We have a huge break in the case, Lester. An  _ enormous _ break.” Dan drained the liquid from his coffee cup before putting it on the counter and walking into the bathroom, keeping the door open. Phil followed him and sat on the edge of the sink, watching as Dan applied his makeup while continuing to talk. “Headquarters have gained an extremely precise location on our subject. He’s going to be visiting the Hitachi Seaside Park, which is about an hour away from here. We’re not going to attempt to apprehend him just yet, though- we’re going to be attempting to follow him around and attempt to find a way of locating his underground weapons stash.”

“Alright…” Phil nodded. “Do we have any idea why he’s traveling there yet?”  
“Not yet, but we’re assuming it’s nothing good.” Dan spun around one of his makeup brushes in his fingers and playfully booped Phil’s nose with it before resuming his speech, ignoring Phil’s clearly obvious blush. “Now, I’m assuming you’re wondering why I’m having you dress in your formal uniform today. The answer is that some of the business workers from the photography company nearby will be traveling there to take photos for advertisements. Our uniforms look quite similar to theirs, so we’ll blend right in. All you really need to do is take some pictures and act professional, and you’ll be fine.”

“Got it…” Nodding again, Phil crossed his legs and watched Dan quietly applying his makeup, a shaky little smile making its way across his face as he gazed lovingly at his crush.  _ So pretty… why is he so pretty?! _ Letting out a wistful little sigh that Dan somehow didn’t notice, Phil leaned back with his back pressed against the backsplash, not even bothering to hide his obvious affection.

“What color?”

“Huh?” Phil jolted upright, startled by Dan’s sudden voice.

“I asked what color.” Dan gestured towards the several tubes of lipstick lined up along the bathroom counter. “I can’t decide which color to use…”

“Hold on, let me see…” Leaning over, Phil looked over the multiple shades of lipstick on the counter, eventually picking up a lovely shade of magenta. “This one.”

“Thank you.” Dan nodded, uncapping the tube and beginning to apply the glossy color to his lips. When he had finished, he turned to Phil with the barest hint of a smile. “How does that look?”

“Stunning…” Phil murmured, only realizing what he had just said a few seconds after it had left his mouth and taken its full effect. His eyes widening with embarrassment, he quickly looked Dan over to gauge his reaction. However, Dan’s only response to this was a little nod of the head, slowly blinking once before leaving the room. Still blushing hard, Phil stumbled to his feet and retreated after Dan, standing awkwardly in the center of the kitchen as he watched his crush grab a leather jacket from his suitcase, slipping his arms into it and rolling up the sleeves a bit. Sighing quietly to himself, Phil stayed quietly as he followed Dan out the door.

~~~

“Pretty…” Phil murmured to himself, gazing at the seas of multicolored flowers that extended for seemingly miles before him. Sticking true to his persona that he was supposed to be adopting, he pulled out his phone and snapped several pictures, skipping along the path next to Dan. “It’s so pretty here, Dan!”

“Yeah…” Dan nodded with a little smile, tugging on his bottom lip with his teeth as he looked over at a field of sunflowers, their petals shining a beautiful golden yellow. “Remember what you’re supposed to be doing, though, okay?”

Phil nodded, slowly looking around. So far he hadn’t caught sight of anybody who could be considered suspicious. “Um, do we have any idea what this person looks like?”

“Headquarters haven’t given us that information yet. Just look out for anything out of ordinary, got it?”

“Got it.” Nodding again, Phil looked through his phone camera at the sunflower field, pretending to take a picture of the flowers before turning his phone back to the path. They had been the only two on this particular path for quite a while now, but not anymore- as if on cue, two people in black trench coats were setting off down the cobblestones at a brisk pace, and although they were quite a distance away, it was clear that they would be near them within a few minutes.

“Dan! Look!” Phil frantically gestured towards the two people that were making their way down the path. “Is that considered suspicious?!”

“Shit. He must have tipped off his henchmen that we’d be here…” Dan huffed. 

“Should we run?” Phil asked, already beginning to take a few shaky steps away.

“No, we’re not gonna run, you idiot! Then they’ll know that it’s us!” Dan shook his head, massaging his temple with one hand as he tried to come up with a solution. “I’ll think of something, hold on…”

“You’d better think of something quick!” Phil hissed, feeling his heart rate speed up as the two men began slowly growing closer.  _ Oh my god… they’re gonna catch us, they’re gonna know... _

“Don’t rush me!” Dan snapped. “Okay, they don’t seem to know that we’re the people they’re looking for… otherwise, they’d be running a lot faster. All we’ve got to do is make it look like we’re someone else…” After a few more seconds, Dan snapped his fingers, his chestnut eyes lighting up with inspiration. “Got it. Just follow my lead, okay? And don’t you  _ dare _ bring this up if we get out of this alive.”

“What? Why would…” Before Phil could finish his sentence, Dan grabbed Phil’s hand and dragged him towards a large cluster of cherry blossom trees nearby, pulling him behind one with an extraordinarily wide trunk. Without another word, Dan practically slammed Phil against the rough bark of the tree, beginning to fumble with the buttons of his shirt and pulling it open enough to reveal most of his neck and collarbone. Phil let out a little screech of protest that quickly increased in pitch and volume when he felt Dan’s lips pressing against his skin. “What the hell are you doing? Get off me!”

“I said follow my lead, okay? Shh… just relax…” Dan gently ran one hand up and down Phil’s side, latching onto his collarbone as he began sucking at his freckled skin, keeping the shorter man pinned against the tree. Phil was still in shock, but he couldn’t help but enjoy it a little bit, letting out a soft little squeak and relaxing against the tree as he focused on what Dan was doing to him. The thought of being caught was slowly but surely pushed out of his mind as Dan trailed his lips along his skin, moving from the little dip in his collarbone up to his neck, then up to his chin, brown eyes meeting blue as the space between their lips quickly shrank in size. Dan gently cupped Phil’s face in his hands, his unblinking gaze enough to cause the noiret to freeze in place, his knees almost giving out beneath him as he grabbed onto Dan’s shoulders to stay upright.

“You okay?” Dan whispered softly, his eyes darting around to keep watch for the two people.

“Yeah…” Phil replied breathlessly, feeling his heart skip a beat as Dan moved close enough for their noses to bump, just as they had on that first fateful meeting.

“Good.” Without another word, Dan let his eyelashes flutter closed as their lips finally met. Phil’s eyes popped open with bewilderment, even though he already knew what Dan was going to do, but eventually he let his own eyes slip closed, letting out a shaky sigh through his nose and hooked his arms around Dan’s neck to pull him closer. His heart was throbbing in his chest so hard it physically hurt, but in the best way possible. Dan slipped his hands down to Phil’s wide hips and held onto them tightly, sending a happy little rush up his spine as his long and slender fingers teasingly caressed his skin through his leggings. Their lips met again and again, gentle motion after gentle motion, their breath mingling in the limited space between them and their noses bumping against each other every time they moved back in. Phil’s head was clouded with nothing but thoughts of the man who was pinning him against the tree, the words  _ DanDanDanDanDan _ running through his mind as his fingers tangled in the baby-soft curls at the nape of his neck, whining and gasping softly every time Dan pulled away. Eventually, Dan slid his hands a bit further down and scooped Phil completely off the ground, holding him up and letting the smaller male wrap his legs around his waist. With that, Phil completely submitted, all of his senses buzzing rapidly as he let all of his weight fall against Dan, not even caring about where he was or what he was supposed to be doing, pure ecstacy running through his veins and causing him to practically melt against his superior. The only thing that mattered in this moment was Dan- Dan who was kissing him, Dan who was holding him close, Dan who was messing with his mind and causing all of his worries and anxieties to simply fade away.

Then, with no warning at all, Dan pulled away completely, turning his head and beginning to speak in a ridiculous American accent. Phil realized with a start that the two people he had spotted earlier were standing besides them. Letting out a shaky little breath, Phil tried to calm down and pay attention to what Dan was saying- the people didn’t appear to recognize them, but he couldn’t relax just yet.

“It’s rude to stare at people, y’know…” Dan was saying in what was supposed to be a Boston accent, still gently massaging Phil’s hips as he kept him firmly pressed against the tree- this was most likely to keep the impression that they were too in love to keep their hands off each other in a public setting, but the gesture was causing Phil’s mind to still feel cloudy and giddy, his thighs occasionally twitching and tightening around Dan’s waist as the brunet held him up. 

“You’re in a public place… you two should know better,” one of the men said to them.

“And you’re gawking at us…  _ you _ two should know better,” Dan replied with a cheeky little smirk. “You’re free to join us, though, if you’re  _ that _ interested…”

“Um… we’re good, no thank you…” the other man replied, raising an eyebrow and taking a step back.

“Are you sure?” Dan asked innocently. “I wouldn’t mind a bit… you wouldn’t either, would you, babe?” he added, turning towards Phil and blinking slowly at him.

Phil felt a hot rush of  _ something _ run through his veins-  _ he called me babe! He literally called me babe!! _ However, he managed to focus on the situation at hand and stay in character, speaking in a shaky yet strong voice. “I wouldn’t mind… I think it’d be pretty hot…”

“Hell yeah…” Dan smirked at Phil before turning back to the two men. “See? No objections here…”

“We’re… we’re good. Sorry to bother you…” The two men quickly retreated and hurried off down the path, looking concerned but mostly grossed out.

Dan waited until the two men had disappeared into the distance before rather unceremoniously dropping Phil back down, walking away as soon as his feet touched the ground. Still a bit shaky, Phil managed to trail after Dan, fully realizing what had happened. “Why did you do that?”

“Simple. Those people who were looking for us were trying to find two British aqquantances, not two American lovers,” Dan replied. “The only thing I have to say about that is that you’re an  _ incredibly _ good actor. Good job.”

“Um, thank you…” Phil nodded.  _ That wasn’t acting, though, _ he thought to himself. He still felt giggly and shaky as he gazed up at Dan, still in awe at what had just happened as his thoughts raced through his head at top speed.  _ He could have just held hands with me or something… he didn’t have to kiss me. God, he’s such a good kisser! Oh my god, just the way he held onto me… the way he just scooped me up with no effort… aah!! What if he wants to do that again?! _

“You’re welcome. Hopefully we won’t have to do that again, that was rather humiliating,” Dan sighed.

Almost immediately, Phil felt his heart shatter at Dan’s words.  _ Wait… why would he do all that if he didn’t have feelings for me? Was he just that good at acting? It seemed like he was really into it… _ Shaking his head slowly, Phil trailed behind Dan as he followed him down the path, his sorry head full of confusion.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Possible trigger warning for arguments. I'm not sure if this technically applies, but I'll put it anyways just in case.  
> 2\. This may seem like the last chapter, but it's not!! The story is still quite far from done!

The rest of the day turned out to be somewhat successful, according to Dan’s terms. When they returned to the hotel, he told Phil that some of the trees they had kissed near seemed rather unusual in appearance, so they would return the next day to investigate. “It’s too risky to keep going now, since we already almost got caught.”

However, Phil wasn’t focused on the task at hand at all. In one single day, his hopes had gotten up to the highest they could possible go, then shattered and crumbled around him all in a matter of minutes. The instant they returned to the hotel, Phil had tearily pushed past Dan, trying not to let him see his face as he darted into the bathroom and locked the door behind him. Sinking to his knees, then lying completely prone on the floor, Phil burst into sobs, covering his mouth with his hand in an attempt to be quiet as the tears spilled from his eyes and dripped onto the tile floor. He didn’t want to face the truth, but it was inevitable- Dan simply didn’t think of him like that. The only reason he had kissed Phil was to avoid being caught or killed- he wouldn’t do it if he didn’t have to. He had worked himself into a delusion- Dan didn’t love him, and he most likely never would. Letting out a shuddering, hissing gasp, Phil dug his fingers into his hair, tugging at it hard enough to pull out several strands as he curled into a little ball. Rolling over onto his side in the fetal position, he simply lay there and let the sobs punch through his bones like they were made of tissue paper, his tears dripping sideways onto his shirt and soaking through. The salty drops clung to his eyelashes in clumps as though he had been swimming, blurring his vision. Tucking his knees up to his chin and making himself as small as possible, Phil allowed himself to completely give into his misery, breathless sobs tumbling from his throat so quickly that he could barely breathe, almost choking on his own emotions as he tried to avoid passing out from lack of air. 

When Phil managed to slowly calm down, blinking slowly in an attempt to clear the tears from his eyes, he didn’t feel any better than before, even though crying usually helped him to release his emotions. Rather, he felt empty inside, as though his entire being consisted of only his love for Dan. Now, it was like he was just a hollow shell, feeling nothing but sorrow. Even though the two hadn’t even been dating, or even romantically involved with each other at any way, Phil couldn’t help but feel as though Dan had been unfairly torn from his grasp, never to be his again. Lying still on the floor, Phil continued to let tears silently drip down his cheeks, his eyes squeezed tight and his face pressed against his knees. Salty drops trailed down his flushed, freckled face, his breaths coming out in shaky little puffs.  _ This can’t be happening… I thought he was right for me, I really thought… I love him too much to let him go! I don’t want to lose him… _

After several more minutes of simply lying on the cold tile, Phil shakily got to his feet, wetting one of the hotel towels and cleaning his face from any trace of tears. He gazed at his reflection in the mirror- his cheeks flushed an awful red, his hair ruffled up and pushed out of its regulation quiff, and his neck and lips still stained with magenta lipstick stains. Suddenly filled with a sense of dread for no reason, Phil picked up the towel and desperately began trying to scrub the makeup from his skin, but to no avail. Sighing, Phil left the white towel, now stained pink, on the counter- room service would probably deal with it at some point. He then took out his contact lenses before leaving the room. Not even bothering to look around to see what Dan was doing, Phil locked himself in the bedroom, changing into black jeans and a grey sweater with embroidered roses on the sleeves. He also decided to put on his glasses- he had brought them along just in case he ran out of contacts, but he hadn’t worn them since he thought they made him look ugly. However, if he was going to get over Dan as quickly as possible, he would have to stop caring about looking good for him… and if that meant looking ugly as hell, then that was what he would do.

Quietly stepping out of the bedroom, Phil immediately noticed Dan sitting on the couch. He hadn’t appeared to have moved since they got home, his head hung and his face buried in his hands. Letting out a quiet sigh, Phil walked past him, completely ignoring his superior as he curled up in a chair with his phone- if this was some sort of sorry attempt of Dan’s to make it seem like  _ he _ was the victim, he wasn’t going to fall for it. However, after a few more minutes of silence, Phil looked up out of curiosity to see what Dan was doing. The brunet at first appeared to be still in the same position from earlier, but upon closer inspection, Phil saw that Dan was shyly peeking through his fingers at him, his eyelashes fluttering quickly and nervously. Exhaling sharply, Phil pretended he hadn’t seen him, continuing to scroll through Twitter and biting his bottom lip to keep himself from saying something he might regret later. He kept sneakily watching Dan from the corner of his eye, though, just to see what the elder was doing. Over a series of quiet minutes, Dan shifted his arms so that his full face was exposed, then tucked his knees up to his chest as he leaned against the back of the couch, then hid his whole face apart from his eyes as he continued to gaze at Phil. Although Dan’s undying stare caused Phil to feel a tiny tug at his heartstrings, it wasn’t nearly as intense as all those other times, and he was able to effectively tune out the other male, determined on not giving into his antics.

“I didn’t know you had glasses.”

“Hm?” Phil turned his head and saw Dan sitting regularly on the couch again, his curls hanging in front of his face so that only one chocolate eye was exposed. “What did you say?”

“I said, I didn’t know you had glasses…” Dan repeated himself, much quieter than before.

“Yeah. I do. I had contacts in before, but I took them out.” Phil replied before turning away in an attempt to signal that the conversation was over.  _ Don’t you dare keep talking… we’re done. Just shut up… _

“You look nice with glasses,” Dan said, slowly getting to his feet. “I like the way the frames go with your hair… and they make your eyes looks so big and gorgeous…”

“What are you doing on about?” Phil snapped, swinging his legs around and standing up, his hands clenched into fists at his side.

“That’s what I should be asking you. You’ve been acting strange ever since we left the park.” Dan crossed his arms and raised one of his eyebrows. “Did something happen?”

“Did something happen?  _ Did something happen? _ Are you kidding me?” Phil replied incredulously, his voice already beginning to increase in volume. “How daft can you be?  _ Obviously _ something happened!”

“Watch it, Lester. I could send you home like  _ that _ if you keep this up,” Dan frowned, snapping his fingers once to emphasize his words.

“Keep what up? I have a right to be angry! How about you get your head out of your ass for once and realize that maybe you’re the reason I’m upset!” Phil cried, stomping his foot in frustration as he took a step towards his superior. “Are you telling me that you really can’t see any possible reason I could be angry with you right now?”

Dan let out a sigh- he sounded irritable, and possibly almost bored, as a result of Phil’s words.“Is this about what happened at the park? Look, I understand how you feel, but…” 

“No! Clearly, you don’t! If you did, then you would be at least apologizing instead of hitting on me!” Phil shook his head, sticking a finger in Dan’s face and feeling a small degree of satisfaction when the brunet took a step away, his eyes widening with shock. “How could you think it was okay to just do  _ that _ to me, then say you’d never want to do it again?”

“It’s not a big deal! It was one kiss, Lester! Besides, we would be captured or dead right now if we hadn’t done that!” Dan yelled, his legs now pressing against the edge of the couch as he held his hands in front of him defensively. 

“It was more than one kiss! It was a full-fledged make-out session! If you really cared about my wellbeing, you’d do something besides pinning me to a tree in a public park and grinding on me!” Phil hollered, his voice rising to a perfect scream as he resisted the urge to shove Dan onto the couch and beat the living daylights out of him. “If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t be such a dick to me all the time! And if you really cared about me, maybe you’d realize how I really feel about you!”

“...w-what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Dan stuttered out after a short pause.

“What do  _ you  _ think? It means that before you pulled that crap with me in the park, I actually loved you, you utter moron!” Phil screamed, his eyes squeezing shut as tears once more began falling down his cheeks for the second time in just minutes. “I really, truly loved you, and I thought you would at least respect me for that instead of playing with my feelings like that!”

Dan’s eyes widened once more with realization, his outstretched palms beginning to tremble slightly as he stared at Phil. “I… please, Lester, I didn’t…”

“Bullshit,” Phil spat, shaking his head. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. I’m done.”

“Lester,  _ please, _ just think this through…” Dan begged, his voice softening to barely a whisper.

“I don’t need to think anything through. This… whatever this is… is done. We’re done. I don’t care if I get in trouble, I don’t care if people say things about me, I don’t even care if I get expelled from the Agency… I’m booking a plane and going back to London. I’m through with this mission. And I’m sorry I ever wasted those precious days on you.” Not even taking one last look at Dan’s face, Phil spun on his heel and stormed into the bathroom, grabbing all of his possessions from the counter and retreating into the bedroom. He began stuffing everything into his suitcase in no proper order or sense, ignoring Dan’s desperate pleas from the doorway. After throwing on a pair of shoes and zipping his suitcase, he turned around and shoved Dan hard in the chest, forcing him out of the way. “Get out of my way. Don’t talk to me.”

“But please, you don’t understand…” Dan insisted, reaching out and grabbing hold of Phil’s sweater. “Let me explain…”

“I said don’t talk to me! I don’t need to understand anything!” Phil forced Dan’s hand away before grabbing his suitcase and storming towards the door.

“No, no, no! Please, don’t leave, I can explain!  _ Please, Phil _ !” Dan screamed, the final word being cut off as Phil left the hotel room and slammed the door shut in his teary-eyed face. Letting out a shaky sigh, Phil made his way towards the stairs and walked down to the front desk, ignoring the clerk’s strange staring at his flushed and sweaty face. As he stepped out into the cool Japan rain, a mix of emotions ran through his bloodstream- a sense of accomplishment and freedom, and not an ounce of regret. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty short; however, it makes a major advancement in the plot. :)  
> Slight trigger warning: the word su*cide is used towards the end of the chapter.

“I’m so, so sorry, Phil…” Tyler sighed softly as he embraced the sobbing man lying in his bunk. The instant Phil had returned to the Agency, he had locked himself in their shared dorm room and hadn’t stopped crying for about four hours. Tyler had tried his best to comfort his friend, but it was clear at this point that Phil was inconsolable. 

“Why would he do something like that?” Phil asked for the tenth time in the past five minutes. “Just  _ why? _ Oh my god, I was so stupid… I should have realized he didn’t feel the same…” His voice broke and dissolved into pathetic sobs, hiding his face in Tyler’s shirt as his entire body quivered with emotion.

“I know how you feel, man… that sucks so much. But you’ve got to try to calm down and move on, I don’t know how else to say this,” Tyler replied. 

“I can’t move on!” Phil squawked, shaking his head. “He’s not like other people, Tyler… he’s different!”

“No offense, but according to what I’ve gotten from you so far, the only way he’s different is that he was more of a jerk to you than other people are…” Tyler mumbled. “Besides, I thought you didn’t love him anymore…”

“I thought I didn’t either!” Phil cried. “But I messed up, Ty, I messed up so hard…”

“How did you mess up?”

“I… I still love him, Tyler! I don’t know how else to say it!” Phil sobbed. On the flight home, Phil had slowly come to the realization that he had fucked up completely. No matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise, he still loved Dan, for some God-forsaken reason. His thoughts kept drifting back to that man and how much he utterly missed him. He missed how Dan could make his mind go fuzzy and cause all his worries to float off into space, all with just a few seconds of eye contact. He missed watching Dan when the brunet wasn’t looking, observing every inch of his perfect body and fantasising about him until he blushed a deep crimson as his heart pounded hard in his chest. And most of all, he missed those rare occasions when Dan would drop the “fine and sophisticated” act and show his true colors, whispering sweet nothings to him as he held him close on the couch, his breath tickling his face and his soft arms holding him in a protective yet gentle grip. “I miss him so damn much! What was I thinking?!”

“Shh, Phil, you’ve gotta calm down! Listen to me for a sec… is there a way that you could speak to anybody and ask to go back?” Tyler asked quietly, lifting Phil’s chin and pushing his sweat-soaked hair from his face.

“I don’t know! Dan mentioned some person who was above him in the Agency, so I could talk to him, but I don’t remember his name!” Phil sniffed.

“Wait… was his last name Urie?” Tyler asked as he raised an eyebrow.

“Um… yeah! Yeah, it was… why?” Phil asked softly.

“Oh my god! You could talk to Brendon!” Tyler exclaimed.

“Brendon?”

“Yeah! Brendon Urie! You don’t know who he is?” Tyler frowned.

“No… should I?” Phil asked with a shake of his head.

“Oh my  _ god, _ Phil… Brendon’s the one person in the Agency who’s above Dan, and those two are super close! I think they were dating at some point a few years ago but stayed close friends… if there’s anybody who could send you back, it’s him!” Tyler grinned.

“You think so?” Phil asked, his eyes lighting up as a rush of excitement raced through his veins. 

“I  _ know _ so! People usually are too scared to talk to him because he’s so high up, so chances are he’s gonna be free to speak with you at pretty much any time!” Tyler nodded. “And don’t worry about having to hide your crush on Dan… I know everyone in the Agency thinks it’s wrong to be in a relationship with one of the other agents, but he’s completely chill with it!”

“Oh my god… can we go see him?” Phil asked, eagerly sitting up and almost hitting his head on the bunk above him in his haste.

“Wait, you mean right now?”

“No, I mean in the year 2020. Obviously I wanna see him now!” Phil nodded.

“...okay then!” Tyler grinned, getting to his feet and dragging Phil out of bed. “You might wanna fix your hair, though… it kinda looks like an emo hedgehog fell on your head.”

“An  _ emo hedgehog? _ ” Phil chuckled as he grabbed his hairbrush. “God, you’re something else…”

~~~

Phil was a bit surprised that Dan and Brendon were supposedly close friends- despite being one of the most prestigious people in the Agency, Brendon seemed like the most laid-back and fun-loving person he had ever met. As he stepped into his office, Phil couldn’t help but be amused by the fact that the glasses-wearing man before him was smiling at a small stuffed golden retriever sitting on his desk. “Um, hello…”

“Hm? Oh, hey!” Brendon grinned, happily waving at Phil as though they had known each other for quite a long time. “Have a seat! Would you like some coffee, tea, water, anything?”

“Uh, no thank you,” Phil replied, taking a seat in the plush red chair in front of Brendon’s desk.

“Are you sure? I’ve got a  _ Keurig _ !” Brendon sang, gesturing towards the black coffee machine sitting on a table in the corner of the room.

“I’m sure, but thank you for the offer.” Phil smiled. 

Brendon nodded with a grin, beginning to stir some sugar into the coffee cup already sitting on his desk. “Forgive me, but I don’t quite know what your name is… there’s so many people here, y’know?”

“Phil Lester,” Phil said.

“Ah, Phil! What a great name!” Brendon chuckled. “Now what brings you here, Phil?”

“Well, it’s about… Dan Howell.” Phil began slowly.

“Dan Howell?” Brendon pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow, pushing a few strands of hair from in front of his brown eyes. “What about him?”

“Well, um… I was on a training mission with him, but then I decided I wanted to quit and go back… but now I’m regretting it a lot.” Phil spoke slowly. “The thing is, um… I like him, quite a lot. I love him, actually. And I might have blown up at him about something stupid and overreacted… and I want to apologize to him and finish the mission with him. Would it be possible for you to… um, send me back to Japan?”

Brendon frowned, resting his head on his hand as he continued to stir his coffee despite the fact that the sugar had already dissolved. “Well, Phil, that’s a bit of a complicated situation you’ve got… now, in any other circumstance, I would be able to send you back with no problems at all. I’d simply contact Dan, tell him you wanted to come back, then send you on a flight to Tokyo, simple as that. But we’ve got a bit of a problem that I’m surprised you don’t know about…”

“A problem?” Phil asked quietly, his hands beginning to tremble with anxiety. “Did… Did something happen? Did Dan finish the mission already?”

“No, not exactly…” Brendon shook his head. “You don’t know what happened? Everyone at the Agency’s been talking about it for hours…”

“No… I’ve been in my room ever since I returned…” Phil shook his head.

“Oh…” Brendon sighed, sitting back in his chair to rub the bridge of his nose with his fingers before sitting forward again. “Phil, I’m not sure how to break this to you gently, but… Dan Howell is missing in action.”

“...missing?” Phil felt his stomach sinking as his heart started throbbing in the ugliest way in his chest. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen- his wild fantasies about reconciling with Dan, then scooping him into the tightest hug ever as he consoled his true love, had shattered into a million pieces with six little words. “W-what do you mean he’s missing? It hasn’t even been a full day since I left!”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out… at some point after you left the hotel, Dan just disappeared. Even our best agents have no idea what’s happened to him.” Brendon sighed quietly. “We’re assuming it had something to do with the suspect you two were investigating, but we’re still not sure yet.”

“Um… a-are you sure he didn’t just leave and go to another hotel or something?” Phil asked softly.

“We’re completely sure. The reason we found out about his disappearance was because one of the maids went to clean the hotel room and saw that it was a total mess.” Brendon let out a little sigh, taking off his glasses and resting them on the head of the stuffed puppy. “There had definitely been some sort of struggle- there were dents in the wall, there were shattered plates… and his compact mirror was shattered on the floor. We’re assuming he was abducted…”

“He’s gone…” Phil whispered softly as he began crying into his hands. “N-no! He can’t be gone! I didn’t have a chance to apologize!”

“Phil, it’s going to be fine,” Brendon attempted to reassure him, leaning across the desk and putting a hand on his shoulder. “We’re investigating it right now…”

“Please, you don’t understand!” Phil sobbed, shaking his head and causing a few locks of hair to fall in front of his face. “I  _ need _ to tell him I’m sorry! I need to tell him I still love him!”

“Phil… listen to me, okay? I know exactly how you’re feeling right now. I’m not sure if you know this, but… your companion and I were romantically involved at one point. And I would constantly get worried about him when he went on dangerous missions… but he always ended up fine. He’s high up in the Agency for a reason… he knows what he’s doing…” Brendon circled around to the other side of the desk and pulled the smaller male into a hug. Phil completely broke down when he felt Brendon’s arms around his shoulders and immediately collapsed against him, tears soaking through his suit jacket and staining the black fabric. Just like that fateful occurence in the garden just hours before, his hopes had risen up to the highest they could get, then smashed on the ground into hundreds of shards. Just like before, he felt every ounce of hope and positivity drain from his body- Dan was gone, most likely dead, and probably because of what he had done.  _ Oh my god, what if he staged an attack then killed himself?! What if he just got so upset by me yelling at him that he just… died? _

“Phil, things are going to be fine, okay?” Brendon attempted to reassure him. “Look, we’re going to find him. It’ll be fine, okay? Then you can tell him everything you need to say… he’s gonna be fine, okay?”

Phil let out a pathetic squeak, sitting up and pushing his hair out of his face. He felt too drained to even attempt to compose a response. Instead, he simply got to his feet and began walking towards the door, slowly shaking his head.

“Feel free to come back if you want to talk about anything…” Brendon replied quietly as he left the room.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a pretty short filler chapter. Also, the large italicised bit at the end is a dream sequence.

As far as he was concerned, Phil’s life was over. What was the point of even trying to go on with his life, if Dan wasn’t going to be in it? He had planned out what would have happened if he hadn’t blown up at Dan- the two would have completed their mission and spent the rest of their time together as agents… who knows, maybe Dan would eventually fall for Phil just as hard as the noiret had fallen for him. But now, rather than his worries fading away, all those plans faded away instead. It was his fault, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it now.

For the next four days, Phil remained confined to his dorm, receiving both food and updates on Dan from Tyler. His anger and heartbreak would come in painful, unmanageable waves- one minute he would slam his head or fists against the bed frame, screaming at himself for being so utterly stupid; the next minute he would be lying face-down on his bed, his face buried in his pillow as he silently sobbed into the soft material; then the next minute he would be curled up in a tiny ball in the corner of his room, the emptiness in his mind and lack of emotion almost driving him insane.

The news from Tyler stayed the same for those four agonizing days- Dan was still missing, and no new evidence had been discovered. With every passing day, Phil began losing what little hope he didn’t even know he had left. Dan was dead, and there was no way anyone could convince him otherwise. Every night, when he curled up against Tyler in an attempt to have a peaceful sleep, he would dream that it was his true love holding him tight against his chest, his strong hands protectively hugging his waist and the steady beat of his heart echoing like a drum in the air. But whenever Phil attempted to gaze up at the curly-headed man in his dream, he was only able to get a split-second glance of his gorgeous brown eyes before Dan simply dissolved into nothing, his body fading away into darkness and leaving Phil to wake up in tears.

~~~

Then, finally, a revelation occured. Tyler had finally convinced Phil to get out of bed and eat breakfast in the dining hall for the first time in several days. Phil got some food but simply sat still at the table, staring down at the table with unshed tears in his eyes. Tyler sighed and picked up Phil’s spoon, slowly beginning to shovel cereal into his friend’s mouth while keeping one arm wrapped around his shaking shoulders. “Phil? You’re gonna be okay… I know that. I know things have been utter shit for the past week, but…”

“Whatever.” Phil shook his head, letting a single tear trail down his freckled face and drip onto the table.

“Phiiiiil…” Tyler whined, just in the way that Dan used to do. “Please…”

“Tyler, please stop. You’re not making me feel any better…” Phil insisted. “Please just leave me alone…”

Just as Tyler let out a defeated sigh and attempted to force another spoonful of mushy cereal into Phil’s mouth, the intercoms in the dining hall crackled to life as Brendon’s voice rang out over it. “Attention… could all agents and agents-in-training please report to the main hall for an important emergency meeting? All agents and agents-in-training to the main hall…”

“What do you think that’s about?” Tyler asked as he got to his feet.

Phil didn’t respond, letting Tyler take his arm and pull him along to the main hall. The two sat on the bleachers all the way at the back, since Phil wasn’t in any sort of shape to be in the midst of the crowd at the moment. Brendon was standing down on the stage, holding the microphone down by his hip as he waited for everyone to sit down. Eventually, he began walking about the stage while speaking into the microphone, his voice sounding rather worried. “Hello, everyone… now, as you might know, one of our most prestiged agents, Daniel Howell, has gone missing in Japan. Whatever rumors you’ve heard about his current status may be true or not true, but we’d like to give you an update on what’s happened so far…”

Phil shook his head and covered his face with his hands. _He’s gonna tell us he’s dead… I know it…_

“He is _not_ dead, contrary to what some people are spreading around,” Brendon said as if to prove Phil wrong in his own mind. “Many agents have been working tirelessly for several days, and we have definitive proof that he is still alive… an anonymous eyewitness recently informed us that they caught sight of Daniel being ushered into a sushi restaurant by two other men. We’re assuming the worst and treating this as a hostage situation, and we are currently trying to find out the identity of his captors…”

 _He’s alive… he’s alive!_ Phil could feel his heart soaring in his chest at Brendon’s words. Yes, Dan was still being held captive, and he was still most definitely in danger, but he was still alive. Covering his mouth with his hand and letting out a tiny happy squeak, Phil could barely tune in to the rest of what Brendon was saying, tucking his legs up to his chest and smiling broadly. For the third time, his head was spinning, his mind full of fog and his cheeks heating up with a blush at just the thought of Dan being alive. Once Brendon had finished talking and people began leaving the hall, Phil jumped to his feet and darted through the long halls of the Agency, skidding to a stop right outside Brendon’s locked office door. He was practically bouncing in place, running on pure adrenaline at this point as he waited for the other man to arrive. He had just a vague idea of what he wanted to do, but he knew that as long it would get him a step further to reuniting with Dan, he was a hundred percent willing to do it.

“Oh, hey, Phil… what’re you doing here?” Brendon asked once he arrived at his office door.

“I wanna investigate.”

“What?”

“Dan. I mean, um… I want to go to Japan help with the investigation with Dan…” Phil said with a frantic nod of his head.

“Oh, um… could we talk about this in my office?” Brendon unlocked the door and let Phil sit down in the puffy oversized chair before pouring himself some coffee as he talked. “Look, Phil, I understand why you want to do this… but you’re not a real agent yet. You’re still in training. This is extraordinarily dangerous for our most advanced agents, never mind somebody like you…”

“Brendon, _please_. This means more to me than anything,” Phil begged. “Dan isn’t just a regular crush to me… he means the most to me in the entire universe. I’m taking this as something personal… I’m responsible for his disappearance, so I should at least help in trying to get him back.”

“Phil, you didn’t make Dan go missing. You two might have had a small argument, but there’s no way that would have led to…”

“Brendon, listen to me…” Phil cut him off. “You don’t understand. You don’t know what happened during that argument… I know it has something to do with him going missing. I know it.”

“Well, then explain what happened.” Brendon sat forward, leaning on his elbows as he waited for Phil to continue.

“Look, we were fighting over something that happened over that day… we were investigating somewhere, and there were these two people who looked like they were looking for us. So Dan said that they were looking for two acquaintances, not two lovers… so then he started kissing me.”

“He did?” Brendon raised an eyebrow.

“M-hm.” Phil nodded. “The people believed it and left us alone, but afterward Dan said he’d never want to do that again. And I was confused, because I thought _for sure_ that he could have done something besides kissing me to avoid getting caught… so when we got back to the hotel we started yelling at each other, and I told him that I didn’t love him anymore, and I called him all sorts of nasty things, and…” He stopped to catch his breath, tears springing to his eyes- he had worked himself into a complete and utter panic recalling the events that had happened several days before. “And then I left… and he was just begging for me not to leave, he was screaming for me to stay… I think he might have gotten so upset from me leaving that he staged an attack and… and killed himself…” Phil finished with a shaky breath, covering his face with his hands. “Sorry, I’m rambling… but that’s why. I _need_ to help find him… I need to tell him I didn’t mean any of those things, not one of them...”

“I see… you really love him, don’t you?” Brendon asked with a little sigh.

“I really do…” Phil whispered, rubbing the tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Please, Brendon… at least consider it?”

Brendon let out another sigh, taking a little sip of his coffee. “Look… I can’t make any promises, but I’ll bring up the subject to the other agents. I’ll try my best to make them agree, but it’s not definite, alright?”

Phil nodded. “Thank you, Brendon…”

~~~

_“Lester. Why are you crying?” Dan stood over Phil, simply gazing down at the man kneeling on the floor before him._

_“Because I miss you…” Phil sniffed out._

_“I’m right here… why do you miss me?” Dan asked, slowly crouching down to Phil’s level and tilting his chin up with one hand._

_“You’re not real, Dan. I’m just dreaming about you…” Phil sighed, letting his eyes flutter closed._

_Dan simply sighed, gazing around at the cloudy pastel blue nothingness they were floating in. “I should have known that originally… I don’t think it’s possible for humans to live in clouds. Is this what all your dreams look like?”_

_“You mean with the blue clouds? Yeah…” Phil nodded. “Why?”_

_“I like it. Didn’t you say your favorite color was blue?” Dan asked._

_“M-hm.”_

_Dan didn’t respond this time, standing up and pulling Phil to his feet as well. He began walking about the cloudy blue space, seemingly in awe of what he was looking at. Phil tentatively followed him around for several minutes (or seconds? Or hours? He had no idea) before speaking. “Dan, I’m sorry…”_

_“Phil, you don’t have to apologizing right now. This is a dream, remember?” Dan reminded Phil, turning around on one heel. “Save it for the real Dan.”_

_“Right… sorry.” Phil nodded._

_“It’s fine.”_

_For a while, the two dream-men stood quietly facing each other, the only silence being a quiet humming noise that gently echoed around in the vast space. After a while, Dan moved a bit closer to Phil, tilting his face up with both hands. “Look, I know you love Real-Dan. But deep down, I’m pretty sure you know there’s a part of him that loves you too…”_

_“How do you know? You’re just a dream… you don’t know any better…” Phil frowned._

_“True, but everything in dreams comes from your own mind. Think about it that way,” Dan smiled. “Let’s take things logically here… think about when he complimented your eyes in the sushi restaurant, when he comforted you when you were having a panic attack after you got chased by those two guys, even when he was super clingy around you after you rescued him on your second day in Japan… and all those other smaller times, too. Think about how he acted around you… how did he seem to treat you?”_

_“Well, um… he seemed pretty protective of me. Even though the whole point of this mission was supposed to be him getting me to man up and be a good agent…” Phil shrugged._

_“M-hm… any particular idea why he would do that?” Dan asked._

_“I’m… I’m not sure.” Phil shook his head slowly._

_“Don’t worry about it. You know the answer. Well, I mean, I know the answer… but I’m technically you, aren’t I?” Dan laughed, gently tapping the side of Phil’s temple. “Now, you’re going to be waking up in exactly one minute. How about I give you a kiss for the road and then send you on your way?”_

_“That sounds good.” Phil nodded. “Thank you, Dan… uh, I mean me… um…”_

_Dan let out a little chuckle at Phil’s confusion, patting the top of his head and playfully ruffling his hair. “Good luck, Lester.” He leaned forward and planted a gentle kiss on Phil’s right cheek, holding the gesture for a few seconds before pulling away. Phil felt a little tingling in his gut, a big grin spreading across his face as the brunet before him faded into beautiful white light._


	10. Chapter 10

Somehow, someway, Brendon had done it. Phil had no idea how, but here he sat on a plane to Tokyo, his leg bouncing nervously as he looked out at the cloudy sky. Brendon had woken him up at five in the morning by means of an airhorn and falsetto screaming, which Tyler wasn’t too happy about, but he fell back asleep about thirty seconds later, which meant he couldn’t have been  _ too _ bothered.

Sighing quietly to himself, Phil moved one hand below the collar of his shirt, his fingers brushing against the metal chain of the necklace Tyler had given him a week ago. He had almost completely forgotten about it, and had only just remembered its “good-luck” properties, according to his friend.  _ Clearly, Tyler was wrong about the whole luck thing… if anything, this stupid thing’s cursed…   _ However, rather than ripping it off his neck and throwing it on the floor despite how desperately he wanted to, he kept the freezing metal object- he would simply give it back to Tyler when he got back. 

As soon as Phil got out of the airplane, he immediately walked straight to the hotel with the crowd of other agents, sticking close by Brendon’s side. “I still don’t know how you managed it…”

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Brendon winked. “Now, remember what you’re supposed to be doing. We’ll be stopping by that sushi restaurant where those men were spotted with Dan. We’ll be disguising ourselves as businessmen stopping for dinner… at some point, talk to someone who works at the place. Try flirting with them and try to get some information out of them.”

“ _ What _ ? I can’t flirt!” Phil whined. “That’s gonna be so embarassing!” 

“Just try your best! Besides, you’re already pretty attractive… I’m sure you won’t even have to make much effort to have every guy and girl in there drooling over you,” Brendon replied, not even regarding how much Phil blushed as a result. “Look, just don’t worry about it… act like you own the place, and you’ll be okay.”

“Brendonnnnn…” Phil whined, sticking out his bottom lip in a pout. “I’ll try, but I’m gonna feel foolish the whole time…”

“You’ll be fine! Trust me… if you need me to bail you out, I’ll come right over, okay?”   
Brendon reassured him.

“Fine…” Phil sighed.

~~~

“Okay. Now’s your chance,” Brendon whispered to Phil as they sat crowded together with the three other agents in the small booth. “Our waitress looks like she’s on break right now… go over to her table and try to get something out of her.”

Letting out an anxious little sigh, Phil got to his feet and strided across the tiny restaurant to their waitress. The woman couldn’t have been older than eighteen or nineteen years old, her pin-straight black hair cascading down around her shoulders as she chewed some gum. When Phil cleared his throat, she glanced up at him and immediately smiled. “Hello…”

“Um… hi! Hi there…” Phil smiled shyly.

“Did you need something?” the woman asked as she raised an eyebrow.

“Uh, kinda? I, uh… just wanted to talk to you…” Phil stuttered out, internally facepalming at how stupid he sounded. He could already tell he had royally fucked things up. 

Thankfully, the woman didn’t seem too offended by his ridiculous attempt at flirting, giggling quietly and gesturing for him to take a seat. “Silly… you don’t have to be so nervous.”

“I can’t help it… I always get nervous around beautiful people…” Phil smiled as he sat down across from the woman. He had said something right! He thanked his mouth for saying something that wasn’t completely foolish, crossing his legs at the ankles and sitting up slightly straighter.

“Aw!” The woman smiled with a little chuckle. “You’re too cute…” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of gum, offering Phil a piece. “You know, it’s nice when customers like you are nice… most people here are very mean to the wait staff. It’s horrible.”

“That sounds horrible…” Phil frowned. “They have no reason to treat you like that…”

“I pretty much just have to endure it every day… it pays the bills, you know?” the woman sighed. “There were these three men who came in just yesterday, and two of them were the rudest people I’ve ever met! Not just to me, but to the third man as well! The poor guy looked so frightened…”

“Why, what did they do?” Phil asked.

“They were ordering for him and they weren’t letting him say anything… pretty fishy if you ask me. But they technically weren’t doing anything wrong, so it wasn’t like we could contact the authorities…” the woman shrugged, blowing a bubble in the gum and popping it with one finger.

“They sound pretty nasty…” Phil frowned. Something about the woman’s words had sounded familiar. He had to keep prying in order to confirm his suspicions, however- he simply couldn’t assume based on that small bit of information.

“M-hm! That third guy was so handsome, though! He had pretty curls, and he was so tall, and I’m pretty sure he had lipstick on… I wanted to talk to him, but those other two guys looked like they would yell at him if he tried to speak,” the woman sighed. “He wasn’t as cute as you, though! You’re just as adorable.”

Phil chuckled at the woman’s compliment, trying to remain calm but was filled with excitement on the inside. Her description matched Dan perfectly- as far as he knew, there weren’t any other guys in Japan who wore lipstick and towered over the general population at a whopping six foot three. “Well, it sucks that those other two were so mean…”

“Yeah… I heard them saying they were going to visit the Hitachi Seaside Park afterwards. I have no idea why they’d want to go there at eight o'clock at night, though! Those two just seemed very weird…”

Phil nodded slowly, carrying on a slightly flirty conversation with the woman for a few more minutes, since it would be odd for him to simply get up and walk away after getting the information he needed. His mind was racing the entire time, however- not only had he managed to get information out of the woman without making a complete fool of himself, but he now knew where Dan possibly was. He vaguely remembered Dan saying something about the trees they had kissed near, and how it could possibly be a way to a secret area underground. He kept the newly retained bit of knowledge in his mind as he managed to seamlessly finish the conversation before retreating back to the table and sliding in next to Brendon.

“Well?” Brendon raised an eyebrow.

Phil quickly recounted everything he knew. “We should probably check out those trees Dan was talking about… maybe that has something to do with where they took him.” 

Brendon nodded in agreement. “Good job. We’ll go there right now.”

Phil managed a little smile, watching as Brendon paid the bill. He was still in awe and happiness- he had done something right! In an attempt to make himself a bit happier, he imagined how Dan would be when he told him what he had done.

That is,  _ if _ he told him. Phil had to remind himself that there was no promise that they would even find Dan on this mission, never mind find him alive. While he was trying his best to stay positive, Phil had to remind himself that there was no definite outcome- worst case scenario, they could find Dan’s mangled body in a back alley or floating in a river and have to bring his corpse back to Britain for the funeral. What would Phil even do if Dan was found dead? He had insisted on going on this mission with hopes of having a grand rescue expedition that would somehow result in Dan falling madly in love with him. But now, his delusion was beginning to fade away to expose the hard truth- Dan could possibly be dead right now, and there was no possible way for a corpse to love him. He wasn’t able to picture what his life would be like without Dan, and he didn’t want to think about the prospect for too long- otherwise, he feared he would drive himself insane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter. :( Also, I'm starting track (i'm still in high school and i'm required to as a graduation requirement) so updates may not be as frequent now. Sorry for any disappointment.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life updates:  
> 1\. I quit track after 2 days. To everyone who said I wouldn't last a day- you were wrong.  
> 2\. Check out the end of the chapter for some awesome fanart by futurebunnyfluff on tumblr! She is an amazing artist, please go give her a follow! :)  
> 3\. Slight trigger warning: one character has minor thoughts about suicide, and there is a character death (but not really) in the beginning.  
> 4\. The chapter seems a bit rushed towards the end... sorry about that.

_ Dan wasn’t moving. _

_ The brunet was face-up in the dirt, the barely noticeable rise and fall of his chest the only sign that he was even alive. His face was stained with blood and tear stains, his eyes closed and his face unhealthily pale. But all of these things were nothing compared to the massive bloodstain surrounding the rusty knife that was sunk up to the handle into Dan’s collarbone. _

_ Phil was vaguely aware of the fact that he was screaming his love’s name over and over again, so loud that it made his throat hurt and his ears ring, as he dropped to the floor by Dan. As he got closer, he resisted the urge to pull the knife out, even though he was sure it was causing the brunet an immense amount of pain- he would simply bleed out faster if he did that. “Oh god, Dan, don’t worry… I’ll fix this somehow, don’t worry!” _

_ “Phil…” Dan whispered, his eyes weakly fluttering open. The gorgeous chestnut orbs were filled with tears that slowly trailed down his face, making a small clear path through the dirt and blood caked on his cheeks. “Phil, don’t bother…” _

_ Shaking his head, Phil pulled off his jacket and began desperately trying to mop up the blood, the red liquid just barely showing up on the black fabric. “Dan, please, I can help… you’re gonna be okay, it’s fine… I’ll make you feel better, I can fix it…” _

_ “No, stop…” Dan shook his head slowly, pausing momentarily to cough up a bit of blood into his hand. “There’s nothing you can do. Don’t bother…” _

_ “...no!” Phil cried, still trying to mop up the blood as he started tearing up. “No, please! It’ll be fine, trust me! I…” _

_ “Phil!” Dan managed to raise his voice just enough to get Phil to stop and listen to him. “Phil, I know you care about me, but you have to stop now….” _

_ “But… but Dan, please! Just let me try to help! Y-you’ll be okay, it’ll be fine, you’ll be okay…” Phil whispered in an attempt to reassure both Dan and himself. A small part of his brain knew that Dan was right- that was an awfully big puddle of blood, and there was no way he could carry Dan to any of the nearby houses to get help in time. But in his frantic, borderline hysterical state, he still wanted to try to help. “You can’t die! I…” _

_ “It’s okay, Phil.” Dan managed a weak little smile, reaching up and delicately brushing the tears from Phil’s face with one hand. “You’ve done your best, but you need to stop now. I’ll be fine…” _

_ “But it’s not fine!” Phil insisted with a sob. “Please, you can’t die, please, I love you…” _

_ “Phil…” Dan began. However, he wasn’t able to finish- his eyes widened suddenly for a split second, his pupils grew large enough to hide the beautiful shade of brown… then with a shuddering gasp, his eyelids drifted closed for the final time. _

~~~

“Phil? Hey, you okay?” Brendon asked, snapping his fingers in front of Phil’s eyes.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine…” Phil nodded, letting out a shaky little breath.  _ That was a horrible daydream…  _ Looking out the window, he saw that the train was pulling into the station, and the garden he had visited just a week earlier was barely visible in the distance, multicolored petals from the trees and flowers blowing up into the air as the wind spun them about. “Just zoned out for a sec…”

“Okay, whatever you say…” Brendon shrugged as the small group of agents, all rather convincingly dressed as tourists, made their way off the train. “Alright, here’s what we’ll be doing… we’re going to those trees Phil told us about, and we’re  _ not _ leaving until we find out everything we can about them. If they’re just regular trees, then we’re back at square one. But if they can somehow alert us to the locations of either Dan or our suspects, then we’ll go from there.” As the rest of the agents kept walking, Brendon gently took hold of Phil’s arm and pulled him to the back of the group, speaking calmly to him as they walked a couple of feet behind the group. “You’re gonna be okay, right Phil?”

“Um… I’m not quite sure what you mean…” Phil frowned, raising his eyebrow.

“I mean, if we find Dan and he’s… if he’s seriously injured,” Brendon replied with a little sigh. “It’s not definite that he’s gonna be perfectly healthy and well once he’s found, so… it’ll be okay if that happens, right?”

Even though Brendon wasn’t being direct with Phil and was trying to soften the severity of his words, the noiret knew exactly what he meant.  _ He wants to know if I’m gonna have a mental breakdown if Dan’s dead when we find him.  _ Phil quite honestly didn’t believe he would be able to go on without that slim hope that Dan was alive somewhere, never mind having Dan alive and well next to him. However, he simply decided to lie to Brendon in an attempt to get him to leave him alone, as he didn’t feel at all like talking at the moment. “Brendon, I’ll be fine! I’m not gonna freak out… this is serious.” Turning away from Brendon and looking up at the overcast Japan sky, he tried to answer the question in his own mind.  _ Am I seriously that attached to Dan that if he died, I would do the same? Could I even be able to cope with the grief of his death? I love him so much… I don’t even know what I’d do if he was just… dead. _ Frowning and sticking his hands into the pocket of his oversized hoodie, Phil tried to push the idea out of his mind- if he thought about it more than necessary, he was pretty sure he’d just throw himself in front of a train right then and there. He was glad he had barely any time at the Agency to think deep thoughts, and he had just experienced a clear example of why. 

~~~

Phil had never invested so much time into a tree in his life.

For the past hour and a half, the agents had been lurking by the four trees, taking pictures of every part of them and scanning the bark for anything unusual. To a bystander, it would look rather ridiculous- seven tourists running around the same few trees, the air being filled with the furious snap of camera lenses as they took hundreds of photos. Phil’s hands were already aching from holding the camera for so long, and his legs were going to give out if he didn’t rest soon. When no one else was watching, he began climbing one of the other trees, pulling himself up until he was on the strongest branch he could find towards the top. He knew that he could get in trouble, both with Brendon and with the security guards that were roaming the park, but he just needed to rest his tired muscles for a few short minutes. Resting his back against the bark of the tree, he plucked off one of the pretty pink petals, admiring it as he held it between two fingers. After a few seconds, he let go of the petal and watched it flutter to the ground, eventually coming to rest in the grass far below.

Sitting up and letting one leg dangle on either side of the branch, Phil held on tight to keep himself from falling as he squinted up at the sky through the branches. The clouds had gotten significantly darker in the time they had been in the park, and it looked like it would rain soon. Phil loved the rain, but only as long as he didn’t have to be out in it, so just seeing the dark clouds above him significantly dampened his mood. Sighing, he let his legs swing back and forth on the branch, holding onto it loosely with just one hand as he drummed his fingers on the bark.

A split second later, Phil heard a noise that sounded like someone cracking a handful of dry spaghetti. His head swiveling around, his heart leaped in his chest when he saw that the sturdy and thick branch was somehow cracking beneath him. Phil froze in place, petrified by fear as he tried to figure out some way to get down without breaking every bone in his body. However, before he could even move an inch, the serene silence was broken by a bone-rattling crack as the branch detached from the tree and tumbled to the ground. The branch hit the ground in a split second, sending vibrations through Phil’s whole body as he hit the ground at a ridiculous speed. Tumbling off of the branch, he somehow managed to scrabble out of the way before the branch slammed down on top of his head, letting out a fearful screech as the branch crashed down onto the spot where he had been just split seconds earlier.

“Oh my god! Are you okay?” Brendon and the other agents darted over to him, their cameras swinging wildly from around their necks.

“I’m fine… just a bit bruised up…” Shakily getting to his feet, Phil looked up at the spot where the branch had fallen, immediately noticing something shiny that seemed extremely out of place within the pink and brown of the tree. “What’s that?”

“Hm?” Brendon glanced up at the tree with a frown. “That’s weird… it looks like some sort of keypad. Phil, do you think you can climb back up there and check it out?”

With a nod, Phil managed to scramble back up the tree, hanging from a slightly higher branch with every ounce of his limited upper body strength as he investigated the keypad that was seemingly built right into the tree. There were ten one-digit numbers on it, as well as a small square red button and a slightly larger green button. “I’m pretty sure this unlocks something…”

Brendon pulled something out of his bag and tossed it up to Phil. Phil somehow managed to catch it with his free hand, sitting down on a lower branch as he examined the device Brendon had given him. It was about the size of a college textbook and had a small grey switch and a single tiny light on the top. “What do I do with this?” he called down.

“Move that switch and I’ll tell you,” Brendon replied.

Phil obeyed Brendon’s instructions and flinched when the switch caused four sharp points to protrude from each corner of the device. He thanked every deity imaginable that he hadn’t been holding it by the corner when the points emerged- he didn’t exactly feel like dealing with a two-inch spike sunk into his palm. “Now what?”

“Use the spikes to attach it to the tree so the keypad is covered up, then flip the switch back,” Brendon called.

Shrugging, Phil forced the spikes into the tree with a bit of effort, making sure that the keypad was completely covered up by the device. When he moved the switch back to its original position, the tiny light on top lit up, and the device began humming quietly. Within a few seconds, there was a tiny beep, and the device came loose from the tree. Phil grabbed the device before it fell to the ground, then suddenly became aware of a violent rumbling coming from the tree itself. Holding on tight to the bark, he and the other agents watched in shock as some sort of door opened up in the side of the tree. Dropping to the ground, Phil squinted down the dark abyss that had been revealed by the door, but he couldn’t see anything, even with his glasses on. 

After a few seconds of stunned silence, one of the other agents spoke. “Well… I think either something or  _ someone _ is down there…” 

“Alright… we’re going down there. Everyone be careful…” Brendon spoke softly, taking the first step forward towards the door. Pulling out his flashlight, he shined it into the inky blackness, revealing a rusted set of metal stairs. The small group began slowly making their way down the stairs, the feeble flashlight just barely illuminating the narrow staircase enough for them to see. Phil kept both hands on the walls as he slowly stepped down the stairs, feeling extremely claustrophobic due to how small the hall was. Trying his best not to hyperventilate, Phil closed his eyes, focusing on the happiest thought he could think of- reuniting with Dan, the one man who could turn him into one big quivering cliche with a single glance.

[Click here to check out the fanart!](https://futurebunnyfluff.tumblr.com/post/183652966143/this-took-me-longer-than-it-should-have-but-i-made)


	12. Chapter 12

The massive space the group entered was pitch-black, the flashlight not even being enough to pierce the dark void. The only way Phil could even determine the vast size of the underground chamber was by the way their voices echoed inside it. Squinting in the inky blackness, Phil reached one hand forward, his fingertips brushing against cold metal. “Does anyone else have another flashlight?”

“No, but I think I found a light switch…” Brendon replied. There was a little click, then suddenly the room was flooded with light. They were in some sort of massive airplane hangar, stuffed to the ceiling with a seemingly infinite supply of weapons and vehicles. Lines of firearms big and small lined the walls, accompanied by cartridges of bullets. There were several large jet planes in shiny black, and even a helicopter parked on a landing pad (although Phil had no idea how the massive vehicles got down there, or more importantly how they would get back out again). There was some sort of loft overhanging balcony above where they were, and the windows were tinted to prevent anyone from seeing inside.

“Everyone spread out and check things out… if you see anybody, then hide right away,” Brendon whispered. 

Before any one of them could move, however, a loud siren suddenly sounded, so high-pitched and piercing it made Phil’s ears ring. He let out a little cry of pain, covering his ears with his hands and squeezing his eyes shut. Over the blaring siren he could hear several unfamiliar voices screaming to put his hands up; gruff and unfamiliar voices that struck abject terror into him with just a few words.

A split second later, Phil felt himself being tackled to the ground from behind, his head slamming against the freezing cold concrete floor. Multicolored spots danced across his vision, his glasses clattering several feet away and being crunched to bits beneath someone’s boot. The adrenaline rushing through his veins was enough to allow him to put up a fight against the person, managing to flip onto his back and shove the person away from him. He scrambled to his feet, almost slipping and falling but managing to run away, quickly pulling a left turn when he saw an open metal door. His heart was throbbing in his ears, effectively muting the sound of the wailing siren as he sprinted down the dark hall he had emerged into. The hall was lined with several other metal doors, but each one he tried was locked. Panic coursing through his veins, he had no choice but to keep running, hearing the footsteps of several other people following him and desperately willing them not to catch up. 

Then, suddenly, a dead end- another locked door, no possible way past in sight. Skidding to a stop, Phil turned around and froze when he saw three stronger, taller men armed to the teeth running towards him. Faced with no other option, he waited until the group got close enough, then dropped the ground, his flexible frame easily curling up into a little ball as he skirted through their legs. He then managed to get back to his feet, setting off at a full sprint back the other way. This time, however, he only managed to get a few feet down the hall before he was pulled to the ground, his shoulder slamming against the floor so painfully he was sure he had dislocated it. This time, Phil couldn’t get the person off of him no matter how hard he tried- they were simply too strong for him. 

After a few more seconds, Phil gave up and stopped struggling, letting the person unceremoniously drag him to his feet. The person holding him up gave him a ridiculously hard smack around the side of his head, so hard that it made his ears ring and tears dart to his eyes. Letting out a pathetic squeak of pain, Phil tried his best to stay upright despite how much his legs were shaking, trying to think of a way to bargain his way out of the situation. “Please, I won’t tell anybody… just let me and my friends go… we won’t do anything…”

One of the other people simply chuckled. “Good attempt… shitty execution. We won’t be letting you go any time soon…” The group escorted Phil back down the hall into the massive storage area they had first been in. Brendon and the rest of the agents were nowhere to be found, which led Phil to presume they had been captured as well. He had to practically run in order to keep up with the people who were dragging him across the room; otherwise, he risked using his face to mop the floor. 

Soon, after being led down a long maze of corridors, the group stopped in front of one of the seemingly hundreds of locked doors. One of the people unlocked the door with a large ring of keys before opening it and throwing Phil inside. Phil let out a tiny cry of pain as his bad shoulder hit the wall, sending white-hot shocks of pain through his torso. The group of people simply chuckled in unison before slamming the door shut and locking it.

Letting out a shaky sigh, Phil let his eyes travel around the tiny cell and take in his surroundings. The room was about the size of a small bathroom, and was completely empty apart from another person who was curled up in the corner, their face hidden. They appeared to be either comatose or dead, since their chest failed to rise and fall at all. Phil closed his eyes tightly to keep the tears from spilling, hiding his face in his arms as he curled up in a tiny ball against the wall and let out a pitiful whimper.  _ God damn it… we’re never gonna get out now. We’re gonna be stuck down here forever… and we’re not even any closer to finding out who our suspect is! _

After what seemed like hours, Phil managed to stop crying and got to his feet, stretching out his aching limbs as he began pacing around the claustrophobically tiny room. It was bad enough being in a room with what he assumed was a corpse, but it was even worse not having anything in the room to take his mind off of things. The freezing concrete floor and walls did nothing to distract him, their plainness somehow adding to the worries in his sorry head.

Phil eventually stopped pacing, standing still right next to the wall where the corpse was. As he looked down, the toe of his boot accidentally bumped against the corpse’s back. Suddenly, the corpse- rather, the person- let out a frightened squeak. “Don’t touch me!”

Phil froze- he recognized that voice. Although it had been so long since he had last heard it, he knew who it was instantly. “Dan?”

“...Phil?” The figure weakly reached up, removing the worn sheet of black fabric from his head. Phil’s mouth dropped open as he stared in disbelief- Dan Howell was lying on the ground before him. He was definitely not in great shape- his face was littered with cuts and bruises, his clothing torn up beyond recognition, and his curly hair crusted with blood. However, it was without any ounce of a doubt Dan- his true love was alive and lying right in front of him.

“...Dan!” Phil could feel his throat clogging with emotion, tears immediately beginning to fall down his cheeks as he dropped to his knees. Within a split second, Dan sat up and pulled Phil into his arms, squeezing him like a teddy bear as he let the noiret hide his face in his chest. Phil could feel Dan’s chest heaving, the brunet’s hot tears dripping down and landing in his hair as he cried quietly. Being careful not to hurt Dan by squeezing him too hard, Phil felt himself sobbing hysterically, letting Dan rock him back and forth as his tears soaked into his ragged shirt. His mind could barely comprehend his reality in his emotional state. Dan was  _ alive. _ He was alive, and he was coming completely undone in Phil’s arms with every passing second. It was almost surreal to hear Dan’s pitiful, pained sobs, especially due to Dan’s amazing lack of emotion on the daily. But he didn’t even care- all that mattered was that Dan was alive and safe in his arms.

When Phil lifted his head, he could see that Dan’s eyes were still welling with tears, although his sobbing had died down a bit. “Dan?”

Rather than responding, Dan simply lifted Phil’s head up with his hand, gently rubbing away his tears with his thumb. “I missed you so goddamn much…”

“You did?” Phil asked softly.

“Of course I did…” Dan whispered, gazing into Phil’s eyes as he pushed his messy hair out of his face. “I thought I would never see you again…”

Phil couldn’t help but smile- he thought Dan would be incredibly angry with him for leaving halfway through the mission, or at least maintain the same deadpan persona he had expressed for ninety percent of the time Phil had known him. But Dan had completely submitted and reduced himself to his true, vulnerable and honest self. There was something in Dan’s eyes that wasn’t contempt or annoyance- even though he was sure it was platonic, Phil knew that it was pure affection. Dan was actually happy to see him! He had  _ cried _ over him, for god’s sake!

“I missed you too…” Phil smiled, wiping another tear from his eye. “W-what even happened to you?”

Dan let out a little sigh, keeping one arm protectively around Phil’s waist as he pressed his back up against the corner of the cell. “You really want to know?”

“M-hm…” Phil nodded, lovingly gazing up at Dan. Even in this bittersweet moment, he had to take a few seconds to simply admire how beautiful he was. Despite the fact that he was incredibly beat up, Dan still looked absolutely gorgeous, especially since it had been so long since he had seen his face. Since he seemed preoccupied to notice what the noiret was doing, Phil settled in on Dan’s lap, wrapping his arms around him and nestling himself between his thighs as he blissfully stared at him.

“If you insist…” Dan closed his eyes slowly then opened them again. “A few minutes after you left, I kind of panicked… I left the hotel and started looking everywhere for you, but I just couldn’t find you anywhere…” He reached down and began absentmindedly running his fingers through Phil’s hair, not even noticing the pleased little squeak that emanated from him as a response. “I had to stop to rest… then before I knew it, these two trench coat-wearing bastards come and tackle me…”

“Oh my god…” Phil whispered, more to himself than anything. Dan had actually tried to find him when he stormed out of the hotel room in a rage instead of just instantly forgetting about him. His head was suddenly filled with a dreadful image of Dan darting through the Tokyo rain, sobbing and crying out Phil’s name as he fruitlessly searched for him. He couldn’t help but feel a few tears well in his eyes, and quickly rubbed them away with his hand, nuzzing his head lovingly against Dan’s chest. “Did they hurt you?”

“Yeah, but I’ll be okay… nothing too serious.” Dan shrugged. “Just a few cuts and stuff…”

“Okay…” Phil frowned. “I’m not hurting you by hugging you, am I?”

Dan shook his head. “If you were, I’d tell you…”

Phil nodded slowly, curling up completely in Dan’s actions and letting the older male embrace him protectively. “...I was really worried about you, y’know… I thought you were dead, honestly…”

“Oh, Phil…” Dan let out a little sigh, giving Phil’s shoulders a little squeeze. “You really care about me that much?”

“I really do… I care about you more than anyone else in the world,” Phil replied wistfully, gazing up at Dan with a timid little smile.

For a few long seconds, the two simply stared at each other, blinking slowly and smiling, neither one willing to look away. Finally, Dan delicately pushed a piece of hair behind Phil’s ear, shakily standing up and pulling him to his feet. “Alright, the staring contest can wait… we’ve got to figure out how to get out of here.”

Phil nodded, simply in a daze as he absentmindedly listened to Dan. Anything could happen at this moment, but he wouldn’t care- Dan was alive, and they were together. In this moment, those were the only two things that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: Love how I write a whole chapter about Dan not being dead and then irl Dan posts a selfie with the caption "still alive" 0_0 daniel is the fbi agent in my computer it's official everyone


	13. Chapter 13

“Here’s my idea… one of the guards usually come in every few hours to give us food and stuff. When the guard comes in, one of us can pretend to be asleep while the other one distracts them… then the first one can attack him and we can get out of the cell,” Dan explained. 

“Okay… but what about everyone else? Brendon and the other agents are somewhere in here too…” Phil asked.

“That’s where this next part comes in. We can get to the security room… they have prisoner records in there. Most likely they haven’t logged any of their names into the system because they’re new, so they’ll just be strings of numbers. We can unlock the doors right from that room because of the electrical locks… once they’re all free, we can go right to the boss’ office and deal with him. He’s our suspect.”

Phil nodded. “So, what even is this place? Like, I know it’s an underground weapon storage unit, but why are there cells and offices in here?”

“Even I don’t know… from what I can gather, it’s most likely our suspect’s main headquarters,” Dan replied with a shrug. “Anyways, let’s get to work… do you feel like tackling a three-hundred-pound armed brute, or shall I?”

“Um… y-you can do it.” Phil replied with a stutter. “How exactly do I be a distraction, though?”

“I’ve got the perfect idea. The same guard always checks on me every single day… and even though he’s a fucking bitch, he’s still completely gay. He’s not interested in me… but he might be interested in you.” Dan shrugged.

“I’m not making out with some random guy!” Phil whined, crossing his arms.

“I’m not saying you have to make out with him! When he comes into the cell, just pretend to flirt with him a bit, get him interested… as soon as he steps into the room, I’ll knock him out.” Dan shakily got to his feet, stretching out his aching muscles. “Just tell him you like his muscles or something, and he won’t be able to resist.” 

“But I’m terrible at flirting!” Phil sighed, looking down at the floor.

“Phil… Phil, look at me.” Dan gently tilted Phil’s chin up with one hand, running his other hand through his hair and pushing it out of his forehead. “You can do it, okay? I  _ know _ you can do it… you’re getting yourself worked up for no reason. Just improvise, and you’ll be fine.”

“I know, but…” Phil let out a little sigh, gazing up at Dan and biting his bottom lip. “It just feels really awkward…”

“Phil… Phil, love, you’ll be fine.” Dan smiled, playfully booping Phil’s nose and giving his cheeks a little squeeze with his hands. “You can do it, okay?”

_ Did… did he just call me love?  _ Before Phil could question this, he suddenly heard footsteps coming near their cell. Dan quickly retreated to the corner of the tiny cell, curling up in a ball and hiding his face. Hearing the door being unlocked, Phil quickly sat down on the floor, pretending to act bored as the door opened.

The guard standing in the door was quite possibly the most terrifying person Phil had ever seen in his life. He looked like he could snap Phil in half with just two of his fingers. Managing to push his terror to the back of his mind, he tried his best to act innocent, crossing his legs beneath him and slowly blinking up at the terrifying man.

“New prisoner, eh?” the guard asked with a raise of his eyebrow.

“M-hm…” Phil replied with a little smile, shakily getting to his feet and trying his damn hardest to act confident. He leaned forward just the slightest bit, putting one hand on his hip and fluttering his eyelashes gently. The simple gesture made him want to throw up, mostly because he was doing it for some random stranger and not Dan. “How long have  _ you _ been here?”

“I’m not allowed to disclose that information,” the guard replied with a deadpan expression. However, Phil could tell he was at least a little bit interested- he had removed his hand from the holster of his gun, and was leaning against the doorframe. 

“Are you sure? I’d  _ really _ like to know more about you…” Phil smiled, slowly stepping towards the guard. “At least tell me  _ something _ about you… you don’t have to be so quiet, y’know…”

“I wish I could…” the guard replied with the barest hint of a smile. “My boss would be rather annoyed, however…”

“That’s alright…” Phil smiled, stepping back and resting his back against the corner of the room. “I don’t think your boss would mind if you took a little break just to talk with me, would he? After all, I’m sure you’ve been working hard all day…”

Instead of replying, the man silently stepped into the tiny cell, standing before Phil with a grin on his face. Phil’s eyes quickly darted over towards Dan, who was getting to his feet and sneaking up behind the guard. He was mouthing the words  _ keep him distracted _ , so that was exactly what Phil did. “See? Just a few minutes wouldn’t harm anyone…”

Suddenly, the guard grabbed Phil by the neck, picking him up and slamming him against the wall as his fingers tightened around his throat. Phil let out a petrified scream and instinctively kicked the guard in the stomach over and over. At the same time, Dan grabbed the guard around the neck and tackled him to the ground, causing Phil to tumble to the floor near him and hit his injured shoulder. Despite the intense pain rushing through him, Phil managed to grab hold of the guard’s keyring, stuffing it down the front of his shirt. Dan quickly flipped the guard over, seemingly surprised to see that he was already out cold. He then turned to Phil, who was trembling in the corner of the room. “Shit, shit, shit… Phil, are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

Phil shook his head. “I… I landed on my shoulder, it hurts so much… and I already hurt it earlier too…”

“Fuck…” Dan reached forward and began gently massaging Phil’s shoulder. “Does that hurt?”  
“A little bit…” Phil frowned.

“You’re probably gonna have a bit of bruising… fuck, I didn’t know he was gonna do that, I’m so sorry!” Dan blurted.

“Dan, I’m okay! Honestly,” Phil insisted.

“If you say so…” Dan’s eyes quickly searched the floor. “Where are the keys?”  
“I got them!” Phil reached down his shirt and pulled out the keyring, jingling it in front of Dan’s face.

“Good job.” Dan smiled, playfully ruffling Phil’s hair as he took the keys from him. Scrambling to his feet, he took Phil by the hand and pulled him out of the cell, his larger and stronger hand completely enveloping Phil’s small and delicate one. Phil couldn’t help but let out a happy little sigh, trailing along after Dan as they snuck through the corridors of the bunker. After a bit of walking, they finally got to the security room Dan had talked about earlier.

“Cover me,” Dan whispered as he began trying each of the keys on the guard’s keyring. Phil nodded, scanning the hall for any guards as Dan tried to unlock the door. However, Dan managed to get the door open within just a few seconds, pulling Phil inside and locking it. “Right… I’ll just take a few moments to get into the computer system. Can you watch the security cameras to make sure no one is coming?”

“On it…” Phil nodded, settling down in front of the wall of security cameras and watching for anything suspicious. For a while, the room was filled with the sound of quiet clicking from the keyboard. Finally, Phil attempted to break the silence despite the serious circumstances. “Dan? Can I ask you something?”

“Ask away.”

“Are you mad at me?” Phil asked softly.

“Why would I be mad at you?” Dan frowned, turning around in the swivel chair to look at Phil. “You haven’t done anything wrong…”

“Yes I have…” Phil sighed.

“Phil… is this about what happened a week ago? At the hotel?” Dan asked, moving a bit closer to Phil’s chair and resting a hand on his arm.

“M-hm…” Phil nodded with a frown, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have blown up at you like that. I know you were just trying to protect me… it was just really confusing what you did…” He let out a little sniff, trying not to cry as he lowered his head. 

“Phil… Phil, look at me. I’m not mad at you, not at all. And I’m the one who should be apologizing to you…” Dan whispered, delicately taking Phil’s hands in his own and giving them a reassuring squeeze. “I shouldn’t have done that to you… I should have known better, I should have known it would upset you…” He reached up and brushed Phil’s tears out of his eyes. “I’m so fucking sorry, Phil…”

“It’s okay…” Phil managed a teary-eyed smile, resting his head weakly on Dan’s shoulder and hugging him tightly. Now that he knew for a fact Dan wasn’t upset with him, he needed to tell him one other thing- that he still truly, undeniably, loved him. 

Before he could speak, Dan said softly, “You know… this might sound a little weird, but back when you said… that you used to love me… I kind of got paranoid.”  
“What?” Phil frowned, looking up. “What do you mean, ‘paranoid’?”

“I mean… I kinda got my hopes up. I didn’t want you to become just another person whose heart I broke…” Dan let out a hopeless little sigh as he started rambling, hugging Phil tightly and gently rocking him back and forth as his voice began to waver. “I was just kind of in shock, y’know? I knew that I’d forced you away, and I didn’t mean to, because I’m just so fucking stubborn all the time… and I don’t know, I just got overly attached to you, and then I just had to be so fucking stupid…” He let out a pathetic sob, hiding his face in Phil’s shoulder and squeezing him like a stuffed animal as he started crying.

“Dan! Dan, calm down! I don’t know what you’re saying…” Phil managed to pull himself out of the sobbing man’s arms, pushing his sweaty and blood-soaked curls off his forehead and out of his face. “Please, you need to stop rambling… just tell me what you mean.”

“I’m sorry…” Dan whimpered. “I’m sorry I pushed you away…”

“I… I still don’t know what you mean…” Phil frowned.  _ What does he mean, he pushed me away? I know he wasn’t intentionally being an asshole to me, but what was he trying to do instead? _ “Can you just be a bit clearer?”

“Phil…” Dan gazed up at Phil, his eyes wide with something the noiret couldn’t quite recognize. “Phil, I…”

There was a deafening slam on the metal door, the locked door rattling on its hinges as someone tried to get through. Phil let out a startled shriek, jerking away from Dan. “What do we do?!”

Letting out a stream of four-letter curses, Dan turned back to the computer, furiously typing at it. “Okay! I’ve got the codes for all six of their cells… I’ll read them off, you type them into that keypad.”

Nodding, Phil began shakily typing in the numbers that Dan read off to him, trying his best to ignore the furious pounding on the door and his shaking hands. “Done!”

Dan typed in a few more strings of letters into the computer with a nod. “Bingo. Those cells are unlocked and opened now. But we’ve got something more important to deal with now…” As if to emphasize his words, there was a deafening bang on the metal door.

“A-are we going to fight them, or…” Phil began.

Dan shook his head, standing up on top of the chair and examining a screwed-on vent cover near the ceiling. “If we go straight… this leads right to the airplane hangar. There’s no way we’re fighting whoever’s out there, it’s too dangerous.” He took hold of Phil’s arm and helped him up onto the desk, grabbing a screwdriver from off the floor. “Unscrew that. I’ll keep that door blocked.”

Nodding, Phil started hastily unscrewing the vent with some difficulty, due to how small both the screws and the screwdriver were. He occasionally glanced over his shoulder to watch Dan as he pushed every single movable piece of furniture in front of the door. Once he finally managed to unscrew the massive vent cover, he cast it to the ground and turned to Dan. “Got it!”

“You get in first,” Dan replied.

Phil nodded, scrambling into the large vent and scooting down enough to make room for Dan. “Your turn.”

Dan scrambled onto the chair, stepping up towards the vent. However, rather than climbing inside, he reached down and picked up the vent cover and the screws. “Phil…”

“What are you doing?” Phil frowned.

“Phil… I’m sorry, love.” Before Phil could ask what was going on, Dan pressed the vent cover firmly against the vent as he began to screw it back in place without another word. 

Letting out a little scream of horror, Phil desperately tried to push the vent cover back, banging his fists on the metal. “Dan, stop! What the hell are you doing? Let me out!”

“Get out of here. Meet up with the other agents and get back above ground. I can fend them off long enough to kill off the boss and escape by myself,” Dan replied softly. “I’m sorry, but I have to do this…”

“No! Dan, think about this!” Phil screamed. “Those guys will kill you! Let me out!” Dan still didn’t reply, continuing to screw the cover into its proper place. Beginning to cry with fear, Phil tried fruitlessly to push his way out, continuing to beg with Dan. “Please, you don’t know what you’re doing! Let me out! It’s too dangerous…  _ please, let me out _ !!”

Dan continued to ignore Phil, putting in the final screw and gazing into the vent at the sobbing noiret. “I’m sorry, Phil… just go. Get out of here.”

“ _ Danny! _ ” Phil let out a pure scream of distress. “Please, let me out! You don’t know what you’re doing!  _ I can’t lose you again _ !”

The single sentence seemed to trigger something in Dan, his eyes fluttering wide open as he gazed at Phil with something unrecognizable in his eyes. After a few seconds of pure silence, Dan began unscrewing the vent once more, avoiding making eye contact with Phil through the entire process. Once he had placed the vent cover back on the desk, he carefully helped Phil down to the floor. “I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay, just… why would you do that?” Phil frowned, still rubbing the tears from his eyes.

“I wanted to protect you… I didn’t want you to get hurt…” Dan replied quietly.

Before Phil could reply, the metal door suddenly burst off its hinges, slamming to the floor with a clang. Letting out a startled scream, Phil jumped back onto the desk to avoid the group of armed men streaming into the room, diving headfirst into the still-open vent. “Dan, come on!” He managed to turn around just in time to see Dan clamber into the vent, his lanky frame just managing to fit inside the small metal chamber.

“Those guys can’t fit in here ‘cause of all their armor… but we’ve got to run and get to the hangar before they do,” Dan panted. 

Phil nodded, trying to crawl as fast as he could down the vent. The metal vent was shaking with every single motion motion he made, and he tried his best to convince himself that it wasn’t going to give out and break because of his weight. When he finally reached the end of the vent, where he was greeted with another cover, he managed to roll onto his back and kick out the cover with both feet, causing it to land on the floor of the hangar down below with a dull metal clang. “Nice,” Dan whispered as Phil lowered himself from the shaft. The two dropped to the floor and promptly hid behind a large jet plane, catching their breath.

“Okay, now what?” Phil began. “Do we start looking for the others, or…” He cut himself off with a barely audible squeal as he felt someone’s hand on his shoulder. Whirling around, he was relieved to see Brendon and the other agents huddled behind them, looking a bit beat up but otherwise perfectly fine. “Brendon!”

“Phil! We were… Dan?” Brendon’s eyes widened as he noticed Dan curled up near Phil’s side. “Phil, you found him?”  
“Kind of, but yes…” Phil replied with a timid smile. He couldn’t help but let out a delighted giggle as he felt Dan wrap his arms around his waist and tiredly rest his head on his shoulder from behind, blushing like an anime character. “A-anyways, what are we supposed to do now? We still need to deal with the boss and somehow try to destroy this place…”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a possible solution…” Brendon replied, gesturing towards a stack of boxes on the other side of the hangar. “I managed to get a look at a map of this place… the boss’s office has a button that’ll cause this whole place to self-destruct with a fingerprint. If one of us can get in there and somehow get the boss to press that button, we’ll get about two minutes to get out of there. It’ll completely obliterate this place, and it’ll get rid of our suspect for sure.”

Dan nodded, lifting his head as he tightened his grip around Phil’s shoulder. “I’ll do it. The rest of you all can get out through the way you came in… I’ll be able to get out in time.”

“No.” Phil turned around to face Dan. “You don’t have to… I’ll do it.”

“Phil, are you sure?” Brendon asked from behind him. “This is a really dangerous job… I’m sure you can do it, but…”  
“Are you insane? There’s no way you’re letting him do it!” Dan snapped. “It’s too dangerous, I’ll do it!”

“Dan, I’ll be fine!” Phil insisted. “It’ll literally take two minutes.”  
“You’re not doing it! Don’t you understand that you could _die_ if you don’t get out of here in time?” Dan growled, grabbing hold of Phil’s upper arm to restrain him.

“Dan, let me go!” Phil whined. “What the hell is wrong with you? I thought the whole point of you recruiting me for a mission was because you were trying to help me be a better agent!”

“Yeah, so?” Dan frowned.

“How am I supposed to be a better agent if you won’t even let me try to improve? I have to do this, Dan!” Phil insisted as he tried to pull free from Dan’s iron grip.

“You don’t understand, Phil! I’m not getting separated from you again, I can’t risk it! If you’re going in that room, I’m going in with you!” Dan begged. “Please, I can’t lose you again!”

“Dan, it’s too dangerous! I understand you’re worried about me, but I need to do this! Please!” Phil insisted, managing to pull his arm loose. “You can follow along if you want, but other than that I’m doing it by myself. Got it?”  
“...got it,” Dan replied softly. “I’m sorry… did I hurt you?”

“No. Now let’s go.” Phil let out a little sigh as he got to his feet, helping Dan to stand as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT NOTE! Hey guys! Sadly, there's probably going to be only a few chapters left, since the book is sadly coming to a close... :( however, I will be putting a poll on my twitter about what type of story I should write next! Please go vote on it here! https://twitter.com/panic_introvert/status/1115963819942133760


	14. Chapter 14

“There he is…” Dan whispered softly as the two peered into the boss’s office through the massive glass windows. A tall man, dressed in a black suit and speaking quickly into a walkie-talkie, paced about the office, an enraged look upon his face. “You’ve got a plan or what, Lester?”

Phil nodded slowly, examining the layout of the office. “One of us can distract him while the other knocks him out just long enough to get his fingerprint on that button… do you feel like tackling him, or do you feel like bashing a blunt object against his skull?”

“I can tackle him,” Dan replied. “You ready?”  
“As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” Phil sighed. “Let’s do this.”

Without another word, Dan hopped to his feet and quite literally kicked the door in, the glass shattering in with one blow from his boot. The boss turned around with a growl. “Who the fuck are you two?”  
“That’s not important. This won’t hurt a bit,” Dan replied with a little smirk. However, before Dan could even move towards him, the boss reacted first, lunging towards him and slamming him against one of the glass walls by his shoulders hard enough to cause several spiderweb cracks to appear. Dan let out a soft grunt of pain which almost instantaneously morphed into a mangled cry of pain as the man pulled out a small dagger and rammed it into his left collarbone, crimson blood almost immediately spurting from the wound.

Letting out a horrified scream, Phil darted over and desperately pulled at the boss’s jacket, trying to pull him off of Dan. “Stop! Stop, get off of him!  _ Stop! _ ” However, the boss simply rotated the knife and worked it deeper into Dan’s shoulder, provoking a blood-curdling cry of pain from the brunet. His stomach sinking at the sound, Phil’s eyes darted around the office until he caught sight of a fairly large hardcover book resting on a table. He grabbed the book then slammed it against the back of the boss’s balding head over and over. The boss eventually dropped Dan to the floor, leaving the knife in his body as he turned his attention to Phil, kicking him in the stomach and causing him to tumble to the floor. 

Phil immediately began crawling away from the irate boss, covering his face as the man threw various objects from around the office at him. Managing to scramble to his feet, he grabbed an office chair, swinging it around and smacking the boss upside the head. Once the boss had tumbled to the ground, he slammed the chair into his head multiple times just to make sure he was out cold. He kept his eyes shut tight as he did so, not wanting to look at the man’s mangled body. He then darted over to Dan, screaming his partner’s name as he dropped to his knees near his limp form.

As Phil got closer, he resisted the urge to pull the knife out, even though he was sure it was causing the brunet an immense amount of pain- he would simply bleed out faster if he did that. “Oh my god! Oh god, Danny…” He pulled off his shirt and tried his best to mop up the blood. “Dan, it’s okay, it’ll be fine,” he attempted to reassure him.

“Phil…” Dan tried his best to get into a somewhat upright position. “Phil, don’t touch it. I’ll be fine.”

“No you won’t! Dan, you’re bleeding!” Phil insisted. “You’ll bleed out by the time we get out of here!”

“Phil, calm down,” Dan replied in a pained voice. “I’ll be okay. Just… just press the button already.”

“Okay, okay…” Phil got up and managed to drag the boss over to the button enough to press it. As he did so, a door nearby opened up with a rumble to reveal an elevator as a robotic voice began counting down the seconds. Dropping the boss's unconscious body, he ran back to Dan, picking him up under his arms as he pulled him to his feet. “Come on, Dan, we’ve gotta get out of here! Just try to stand up…”

Dan managed to stagger to his feet with quite a bit of effort, wrapping his arm around Phil’s shoulders in an attempt to stay upright. “Phil, please don’t drop me…”

“I’m not gonna drop you, don’t worry…” Phil managed to drag Dan into the elevator, the doors closing automatically behind them. The entire building was trembling and shaking as the elevator slowly made its way upward, the lights in the small chamber flickering violently. Phil resisted the urge to hide his face in Dan’s shoulder, instead choosing to wrap his arm protectively around his crush’s waist and pretend to be brave for his sake. “It’s alright, Dan…” Dan didn’t respond, letting out a soft whimper as he prodded at the knife still wedged firmly in his collarbone.

_ Come on, come on, come on, _ Phil silently begged to the elevator as the electronic voice got closer and closer to zero.  _ Please, don’t do this to me…  _ He mentally prepared himself for the worst, leaning down to get one last look at Dan’s pretty face… just in case.

Then, suddenly, after several more agonizingly slow moments, there was a small ding as the elevator door opened up. The elevator shaft had quite literally been stuffed into the bark of one of the trees, which apparently was hollow. Phil wasted no time at all scooping Dan into his arms and running as far away from the tree as he could, squeezing the brunet like a teddy bear and keeping his eyes squeezed shut. A few seconds later, a slightly muffled (but still agonizingly loud) blast echoed from below ground, causing the grass below his feet to shake. Phil lost his balance and tumbled to the ground but still held on tight to Dan, too scared to get up. 

The sound of the burst echoed in Phil’s head for a few more seconds, his ears continuing to ring afterwards. Shakily sitting up and looking down, his heart broke when he saw that Dan was crying- his shoulders were trembling, one hand pressed over his mouth to stifle his sobs and the other one digging into the grass, his eyes closed tight as the tears slipped past his closed lashes. “Dan…”

“Phil, it hurts…” Dan whined.

“I know it hurts, Danny… we’ve gotta find the others, they can help…”  _ Hopefully. _ Managing to pull the sobbing Dan to his feet, Phil turned around and almost immediately spotted Brendon and the other agents running towards them. “Brendon! Oh my god, hurry!”

“Phil! We thought you… oh my god! Did the boss do that to him?” Brendon gasped when he caught sight of Dan. 

“Yes! We’ve got to get him to a doctor or something, he’s gonna bleed out!” Phil cried. 

“I’ll contact the Agency… there’s most likely a few agents working undercover at the hospital who can take care of him in the emergency room. I’ll get them to send an ambulance our way.”

As Brendon pulled out his phone and frantically dialed a number, Phil rested Dan on the ground, using his shirt to try to mop up a bit of the blood. “Dan… Dan, don’t close your eyes! You’ve got to stay awake, come on…”

“But I want to sleep…” Dan frowned, his voice slightly slurred and significantly softer than usual.

“I know, but you can’t sleep right now. You can sleep later, but not right now, okay? You’ve got to stay awake right now…” Phil said quietly.  _ If he “falls asleep,” he’s not gonna wake up _ . “Can you keep your eyes open for me?”

“For you?” Dan asked weakly.

“M-hm. If you keep your eyes open, that’ll make me happy, okay?”  
“It’ll make you happy?” Dan asked with the barest hint of a smile.

“Yes! It’ll make me happy… but only if you don’t fall asleep, okay? As long as you’re awake, I’ll be happy, got it?” Phil said in an attempt to reason with Dan. 

“I’ll try… I’ll try to stay awake for you, Phil…” Dan reached up and linked his fingers with Phil’s squeezing his hand tight.

“I know you can do it, Dan…” Phil whispered in an attempt to reassure both his injured companion and himself. “You’ve got this… just keep those eyes open, keep them open for me…” He felt a lump rising in his throat as he gazed into Dan’s eyes-- although they were halfway open and filled with tears that continued to stream down his cheeks, they were still of trust and certainty. Phil could tell that he was absolutely determined to stay awake for him, the brunet’s lips curving into a shaky smile. However, his skin was growing deathly pale, and the puddle of blood surrounding his collarbone didn’t appear to be shrinking any time soon. Sighing, Phil tried his best to appear optimistic for Dan, running his other hand through his curly locks as he squeezed his other hand tightly around Dan’s. “You’ve got this, Dan… the ambulance will be here soon, and you’ll be okay, just hold on…” 

After several agonisingly long minutes, Phil’s ears finally picked up on the sound of a siren as the ambulance rumbled unevenly over the cobblestones towards them. As the ambulance pulled to a stop, a large group of emergency workers stepped out, asking Phil to step back so they could tend to Dan.

“Phil?” Dan’s eyes widened with visible fear as Phil let go of his hand and stood up. “W-where are you going? Don’t go!”

“I’m sorry, Dan, I know… these people are gonna help you, okay? Just please stay awake for me…” Phil sighed. He stepped back and hid his face in Brendon’s shoulder as he began crying. All of his emotions from the past few hours had been building up inside of him, and the sight of Dan being absolutely terrified to be taken away from Phil was the last straw. He cried pitifully into Brendon’s shirt, still silently begging for Dan to be okay.  _ Please… just let him stay awake. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this chapter seemed a bit rushed. :/ Also, the next chapter will most likely be the final one in this book! It's been a fun time writing this book, and I'm pretty sad that it's the end. :( Stay tuned for the final chapter, coming soon!


	15. Chapter 15

Three Weeks Later

Phil’s hands tightly gripped the plastic that wrapped the store-bought bouquet of roses, his footsteps echoing eerily in the almost empty hallway. He counted the door numbers until he reached Dan’s hospital room, slowly pushing the door open and peeking in. “Dan?”

Dan had recovered surprisingly well, especially considering how serious his wound was. His shirt was off and his shoulder was wrapped tightly in bandages, an IV lodged into his vein. Other than this, he appeared as though he could have been at home instead of a hospital-- he was reading a book and periodically taking sips from a glass of water, a look of pure content on his face. He was wrapped up in a blanket Phil had given him the last time he visited, and he was surrounded by dozens of get-well cards he had received from various people at the Agency. Glancing up, he caught Phil’s eye and smiled. “Oh! Come in…”

“Did you miss me?” Phil asked with a giggle as he stepped into the hotel room.

“Quite a bit, actually…” Dan replied, chuckling as Phil put the flowers into the vase by his bed to replace the dying ones from last week. “I was starting to think you forgot about me…”

“I could never forget you…” Phil replied softly as he pulled up a chair besides Dan’s bed, gazing up at the brunet with a little smile. 

“Pfft…” Dan snorted, leaning back in his bed and looking over at Phil. “Y’know, Lester, I’ve been thinking…”

“About what?”

“Well… I was extremely impressed by your performance three weeks ago. Very impressed, in fact,” Dan replied.

“Oh! Thank you…” Phil smiled, lowering his head as a slight blush spread over his face.

“I have a proposition for you. Consider this: once I am fully healed and return to the agency, I can recruit you as a real agent and my partner. What would you say to that?”

“...what did you say?” Phil’s eyes widened with absolute shock.

“You hear me. Would you be interested in becoming a real agent and helping me out?” Dan smiled.

“I… I’d love to!” Phil beamed, tears of happiness darting to his eyes. “I don’t even know what to say… thank you!”

“No need to thank me. You deserve it, Phil,” Dan replied with a little grin, reaching out and playfully ruffling Phil’s hair.

With a small giggle, Phil practically dove into Dan’s arms, being careful not to hurt him as he hugged him tightly. Without any hesitation, Dan hugged him back, embracing him and resting his chin on top of his head. Hugging Dan was like hugging a big, fluffy teddy bear-- although it was completely possible that he was cuter than any teddy bear in existence. Sighing to himself, Phil turned his head to rest his ear flat against Dan’s chest, peacefully taking in the steady  _ thump-thump-thump _ of his heart while Dan carded his fingers through his messy hair.

“Hey, Phil?”  
“Yeah?”

“I missed you.”

Phil didn’t realize how much he had needed to hear that, happy tears spilling over and dripping onto Dan’s shirt. “I missed you too.”

~~~

Two men sat in the same room.

The first man was curled up in the leather chair behind his desk, gently drumming his fingers on the desktop. His crimsoned lips were curled up into a close-lipped smile, his eyelashes fluttering open and closed slowly as he wound one of his curls around his finger. His eyes were wide with wonder as he gazed at the man across from him. The second man was sitting on top of his desk, swinging his long legs as he looked down at him. His hair had been pushed back into a neat quiff, although a few frizzy strands poked up here and there. His half-lidded eyes were directly focused on his love, the words he wanted to say just on the tip of his tongue.

“How does it feel to be a real agent, Lester?” Dan asked with a smile.

“It feels amazing…” Phil grinned, picking up a half-used pink note cube from Dan’s desk and passing it between his hands. “It feels weird being back in London, though… can we go back to Japan soon?”

“I’m sure Brendon could arrange something…” Dan chuckled, watching as Phil took a yellow highlighter and scribbled a lopsided heart on the note cube. He raised an eyebrow as Phil stuck the note on his forehead, eventually giving in and laughing along with him. “You’re pretty funny… you’re still weird, but you’re funny.”

Phil nodded, biting his bottom lip as anxiety bubbled in his tummy. Things should have been perfect, and that’s how they certainly seemed. However, he had yet to do the one thing he had been wanting to do just mere days after meeting Dan-- to tell him that he loved him. Those strange dreams he’d had several weeks ago seemed to be encouraging him, but there was still a bit of doubt in the back of his mind.  _ Nothing’s certain… there’s no one hundred percent chance that he feels the same way, y’know… _

“Something on your mind?”

“I guess you could say that…” Phil shrugged, getting up and beginning to pace around the room.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Dan asked.

“I mean… it kind of involves you.”  
“Me? ...what about me?” Dan frowned and got to his feet, resting his hand on Phil’s shoulder and slowly turning him around to face him. Phil didn’t respond, his eyes darting around the room anxiously, focusing on everything but Dan. With a little sigh, Dan tapped the side of Phil’s head, gesturing for him to make eye contact with him. “Hey, come on… you can talk to me about it. What’s bothering you?”

“Look… this might sound kind of weird, but… do you remember what happened that first week in Japan? When we got in that argument?” Phil asked quietly.

“Yes… what about it? I already said you don’t have to apologize for that, it was my fault. Is it still bugging you?”

“A bit. Remember when… when I started yelling at you? And I said that… I used to like you?” Phil looked down at the floor, shuffling his feet nervously and folding his hands. “Well… I may or may not still love you. And… I figured I should probably tell you now so I don’t keep putting it off. I hope you’re not mad at me…” He sniffed and rubbed his eyes with his hands, still much too anxious to make eye contact with Dan. When the brunet didn’t answer, Phil looked up in confusion. His heart positively soared in his chest when he saw Dan smiling, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “Dan?”

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to hear you say that, you dork…” Dan giggled. “Do you really mean that?”  
“I… yeah! I really do!” Phil nodded his head quickly, still rubbing his tears away with a weak grin. “Wait, hold on… is that a good thing?”

“Of course it’s a good thing!” Dan immediately scooped Phil into a tight hug, burying his head in his shoulder and ignoring his little squeak of surprise. “I love you, you nerd. I love you so fucking much…”

“Oh my god! I…” Phil’s voice cut off in a shaky little gasp as he wrapped his arms around Dan’s neck, his throat clogged with emotion as he held on tight to him like he would disappear if he let go. “Oh my god, I can’t… god, I love you so much! Oh my god…” He took in a huge shaky breath, still babbling nonsense as he hid his face in Dan’s chest, his tears soaking into his suit jacket. Dan simply embraced him tightly, rocking him back and forth and running his fingers through his hair. Phil’s thoughts were racing, his body trembling as he tried to control his happiness.  _ Dan loves me, Dan loves me, Dan loves me… _

Once Phil had finally managed to calm down, he pulled back and gazed up at Dan with a shaky smile, pushing his curls out of his face and lovingly staring into his eyes. Dan was smiling back, timidly biting his bottom lip with a half-lidded gaze. Taking in a sharp little breath, Phil held on tight to Dan’s shoulders, standing up on his tiptoes to close the subtle height difference between them. “Can I kiss you?”

“Of course you can,” Dan smiled.

So Phil kissed him. Soft and gentle at first, his lips just barely brushing against Dan’s as he waited hesitantly for Dan to respond. He didn’t have to wait very long, however, as within just a second Dan was resting his hands on his waist, his hands gently rubbing against his skin. Smiling into the kiss, Phil let his body completely relax, winding his arms around Dan’s neck and letting the brunet lift him off his feet, tangling his fingers in his fluffy, baby-fine hair. After a few more long moments, Dan pulled back a bit to catch his breath before kissing Phil again, this time using his tongue to gently part his lips as he hugged his waist tightly and pulled him closer. Phil couldn’t help but let out a surprised little squeak but quickly accepted it, slipping his hands further up and cupping Dan’s face in his palms. This wasn’t anything like the first kiss they had shared just weeks ago-- that one was nothing but lustful, both of them taking out their uncertainty and frustrations on each other in the only way they could think of. This kiss was different, a clear note of trust and love between the two. Phil could care less about his surroundings-- all that mattered was that Dan was there, and Dan was kissing him, and that everything was okay… sweet, wonderful Dan, who could make everything better in an instant.

Dan pulled away after a bit longer, ignoring Phil’s whine of protest and opting for kissing the tip of his nose instead. “You’re a good kisser, Lester…”

“Thank you…” Phil blushed and pressed his head against Dan’s chest for a few seconds before glancing up at Dan with a smile. “So, um…”

“What is it?” Dan asked.

“Are we… a thing now? I don’t know how this works… sorry.” Phil shrugged, reaching down and lacing Dan’s fingers with his own.

“If you want us to be ‘a thing’, then… I’d be honored to.” Dan winked, playfully ruffling Phil’s hair out of its regulation quiff so it fell partially in his face. He reached down and tilted up Phil’s chin, leaning close enough for the noiret to make out every freckle on his cheeks and every eyelash surrounding those gorgeous brown orbs. His eyes drifted over Phil’s entire face, eventually settling on a spot on Phil’s collarbone. “What’s that?”

“Huh?” Phil looked down and saw that Dan was gazing at the necklace Tyler had given him seemingly ages ago, the minuscule onyx crystal shimmering a bit as the setting sun from the window. “Oh! My friend let me borrow that a while back… I’ve got to give it back to him.”

“That’s really pretty…” Dan said softly.

“Yeah… he told me it was supposed to bring good luck,” Phil chuckled, picking up the gem between his thumb and index finger and admiring it.

“Has it worked so far?” Dan asked.

“Hm…” Phil looked up into Dan’s gorgeous face, pretending to think before pecking him on the lips with a grin. “Yeah. I think it has.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there! I hope you have enjoyed the story! I had a lovely time writing it, and I hope everyone who read it had a lovely time as well! I'll most likely be making a second part to this, mostly because I love these two dorks and this au so much! Until then, don't forget to leave kudos and comment (if you want to) and check out some of my other works as well! Have an amazing day! :)


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